Dave Mollard's Change is Constant: What we can learn from the world's last superpower

Aotearoa needs more taco trucks and we should be able to turn left on a red light if it's safe while on our way to said trucks. Photo / Andrew Warner

OPINION:

For the past four weeks, I have been travelling through heartland USA on a pilgrimage to all the things I love about this country. Its national parks, its roads, its people and, of course, its food.

One thing I love about the United States is that it's not one country but a collection of 50ish countries, all using the same currency and swearing allegiance to the same flag, but fiercely independent from each other. The diversity of this land is incredible. From Amish to Apache, from Puerto Rican to Pennsylvanian, Hawaiian to Hillbilly this country is truly a collection of thousands of subcultures.

Whenever we are away from home it is inevitable we compare our motu with the one we are visiting. I guess that is the part where we Kiwis get to feel pretty good about ourselves, living in what I believe is the closest country to paradise, down at the bottom right-hand corner of most world maps (except the ones that forget us altogether).

Aotearoa is not perfect and we can learn from what other people are doing. While driving through the prairies, ranges, canyons and mountains of middle America I came up with a list of the things I think we need to adapt from the world's last superpower.

Toilets, or washrooms as they call them here. I don't mean the terribly designed public stalls with a foot gap at the bottom and a half-inch crack between the door and the jam! No, I'm talking about the porcelain throne you sit on. When you push the flush button and the water level rises like a flash flood threatening to overflow before rapidly draining into a vortex, cleaning any mess in its path!

Americans are free to proceed through a red light when turning right as long as the way is clear. Of course, in our country it would be turning left, but think of the zillions of dollars in lost productivity we would claw back if we were allowed to save ourselves 30 seconds a day at those pesky red lights!

Respecting veterans. Obviously, American foreign policy means they have a conveyor belt of veterans who have fought and bled in a stream of conflicts for the past 80 years and of course the way they honour their military today is a knee-jerk reaction to how they treated the veterans of the American war in Vietnam. But we also send young Kiwis into harm's way dodging bullets and IEDs as they carry out our obligations as good global citizens.

I don't think we need parades every week but we do need to acknowledge that our soldiers, sailors and aircrew have risked their lives for others' freedom and have suffered because of their sacrifice.

Cheap motels. They may resemble the set from a Hollywood crime thriller but America is absolutely full of $80 a night motels. Just lock your doors!

Taco trucks. Donald Trump once warned that if America did not vote for him there would be Taco trucks on every corner. This tacotsunami never came true but perhaps in New Zealand the less we vote for his Orangeness, the more taco trucks we will get?

Despite the great time we are having and the lovely people we have met, the land of the free and the home of the brave does not feel freer or braver than the land of the long white cloud.

Our country is not perfect but it's always a great feeling landing at Auckland International Airport knowing that we belong to this peace-loving, people-loving and for the most part environment-loving nation.

• Dave Mollard is a Palmerston North community worker and social commentator.