Can the World be a Happy place?

[Skip Brutale]

I was at my rents for dinner and something got me going off about how the world is such a sick, sad, miserable place of cruelty, pain, and sorrow. Then my mom chimed in with something like "or the world can be a happy place, it is what you make it".

I'm well versed on her counter-argument so I came back hard with a punishing "yeah you can be ignorant to reality and put the blinders on but that wont change the fact there are still children born with horrible birth defects, people still living in slavery, a woman getting raped somewhere right now, a child being molested, a dog dying or a plane crashing, even the Buddha said "life is suffering"".

She had no counter-point. Especially once I start quoting the Buddha to aid in my cause. Do you guys think I am wrong, and if so lets enter a debate where we wont change each other's minds, and things will quickly deteroriate into off-topic personal insults, one upmanship, and ego-damaging fueled anger.