American Highway System: Spirit of a Free People

In praise of our NHS.

It is impossible to listen to a British politician talk about the National Health Service without noticing the constant use of the possessive. It’s never “the NHS.” It’s “our NHS.” To an American ear, this English usage sounds strange. We, too, have broadly popular entitlement programs, but one rarely hears a politician talk of “our Social Security” or “our Medicare.”

In 2009, a man at a town-hall meeting for Bob Inglis told the…