I do not doubt Americans have a different perspective on things than the rest of the world. No doubt at all, and not just on war.
We haven't been invaded by a foreign enemy since 1812. We have never been occupied. We have won every major war and lost one skirmish in a backwater nation.
We have stores open 24/7/365. If I want a cold beverage at 3 a.m., I can choose from 50 varieties at that time of night. I don't even have to get out of my car if I don't want to. Or I can even pick up the telephone and make someone bring me hot food.
I think most Americans have no clue, none, how good they have it. If they did, there wouldn't be so freaking much complaining.
But Americans are a great people, too, when aroused. We are generous to a fault, and want everyone on the planet to have it as good as we do. We cry not only at the relatively insignificant deaths of our soldiers, but at the bloated-from-starvation belly of a child 8,000 miles from our shores. We are big, smiling, goofy people who pack a helluva barroom punch. We are dangerous and we are harmless as a butterfly.
People all over the world are literally dying to escape from their own countries to get to our country and others in the West. That will always be an inescapable testimony to our greatness. Anyone who puts us down while praising some tinpot country elsewhere will not be able to hide from that great fact. People who can't vote and who can't speak out to the errors in judgment of the useful idiots in the world, vote with their feet and speak with their desperation to get here.
I think, though, that even inside the heart of one who criticizes our country more than they praise it lives a patriot. I think their criticism is driven by a desire for improvement. If they really didn't love it, then they would indeed leave it. I must often remind myself of that when I feel my own patriot within in extreme ire over something I feel has been said out of line with what I think about my country.
We haven't been invaded by a foreign enemy since 1812. We have never been occupied. We have won every major war and lost one skirmish in a backwater nation.
We have stores open 24/7/365. If I want a cold beverage at 3 a.m., I can choose from 50 varieties at that time of night. I don't even have to get out of my car if I don't want to. Or I can even pick up the telephone and make someone bring me hot food.
I think most Americans have no clue, none, how good they have it. If they did, there wouldn't be so freaking much complaining.
But Americans are a great people, too, when aroused. We are generous to a fault, and want everyone on the planet to have it as good as we do. We cry not only at the relatively insignificant deaths of our soldiers, but at the bloated-from-starvation belly of a child 8,000 miles from our shores. We are big, smiling, goofy people who pack a helluva barroom punch. We are dangerous and we are harmless as a butterfly.
People all over the world are literally dying to escape from their own countries to get to our country and others in the West. That will always be an inescapable testimony to our greatness. Anyone who puts us down while praising some tinpot country elsewhere will not be able to hide from that great fact. People who can't vote and who can't speak out to the errors in judgment of the useful idiots in the world, vote with their feet and speak with their desperation to get here.
I think, though, that even inside the heart of one who criticizes our country more than they praise it lives a patriot. I think their criticism is driven by a desire for improvement. If they really didn't love it, then they would indeed leave it. I must often remind myself of that when I feel my own patriot within in extreme ire over something I feel has been said out of line with what I think about my country.
