Among the Nobel Prizes awarded each year is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
It was first awarded in 1901, and through 2019, 219 have received the award.
Of the 219 recipients, 100 have been American, according to Statista.
This one piece of information leads me to conclude there is a high likelihood it will be an American who delivers the medicines we seek now in the battle to defeat the coronavirus that plagues us.
Am I looking for a reason for pride in America? Not really. I'm looking more to shine light on what it is that makes America great.
Sadly, the truth and reality of America are being broadly distorted by media and others on the left, and it's having impact.
According to a new Gallup poll, 63% of Americans say they are very proud or extremely proud to be American. This is the lowest reading ever recorded since Gallup has measured it. The first time it was done, in 2001, 87% said they were very or extremely proud.
Among Republicans, 67% say they are very or extremely proud. However, among Democrats, it's only 24%.
Forty-nine percent of white Americans say they are very or extremely proud compared with 24% of nonwhite Americans.
The drop among nonwhites in recent years has been particularly sharp. Just four years ago, 45% of nonwhites said they were very or extremely proud.
I focused above on the number of Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine achieved by Americans, rather than economic growth and prosperity, because it gives more concrete perspective on the impact of Americans on the quality of life.
In 1901, when the first Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded, life expectancy was 49.2 years. Now it is 78.87.
Certainly, the major improvement in life expectancy largely reflects advances in medicine and medical technology, and it is clear that Americans have played an outsized role here.
Americans have contributed disproportionately to improving human life around the globe.
Of course, Americans have made outsized contributions in science and technology in general.
We must ask, then, what is the connection between the disproportionate American contribution to improving the quality of life and what America is about?
My answer is that America itself was an innovation. It was the first nation in the world founded on an idea and a truth. That idea and truth is that God created man to be free. This powerful truth on which our nation was founded and built explains America's outsized achievements.
The reason why we even know about the bad things that happen in our country is because it is free. Horrors like what happened to George Floyd occur all the time in China. Do the Chinese people know about it?
The great disparity between Republicans and Democrats regarding pride in their country tells the whole story about how confused many Democrats are.
Now we have a recovery underway. Forty percent, about 8 million, of those who have lost their jobs during the pandemic have returned to work since April. According to the Wall Street Journal, it took the U.S. 20 months from the bottom of "the 2009 recession to recover an equivalent share of lost jobs."
Now Joe Biden is campaigning for the votes of the 76% of Democrats who are not very proud of their country -- who long for the failures of socialism. He wants to roll back the Trump tax cuts that created a booming economy and the lowest black unemployment on record, the same tax cuts and deregulation that are enabling the current economic bounce back.
Americans do great things because America is a free nation under God. And this free nation under God is open and honest about its shortcomings, and strives to fix them.
Democrats want neither freedom nor honesty. And if we give them more power, they will certainly destroy our great country.
Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and author of the new book "Necessary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Culture War and Why This is Good News for America." Readers can respond to Star's column by emailing star-parker@urbancure.org.
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