My complicated sense of patriotism

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

What is your favourite thing about your country?

This prompt is going to be a particularly tough one for me to respond to, because, for the first time in my life, I find myself ashamed to be an American

If you haven’t picked up on it already by reading other entries on this blog, I am not a big fan of our current president. I didn’t vote for him. I never voted for him. I’ve never voted for anybody of his political party. I feel a Democrat and every election in which I’ve ever voted, but I’m not really happy with their track record lately either.

I’m not going to sit here and argue point after pointing about why I don’t like our current president. Making these points to supporters would be akin to talking to a wall. listing these reasons for progressives would be like preaching to a church choir.

But if I had to claim one thing (or two things) I like to live in my country, first and foremost, I would probably say the constitution of the United States.

A government of the people, in theory

No, it’s not a perfect document. But it was written by human beings who didn’t claim to be perfect themselves. I do like the aspirational goals at the founding father set forth for this country and the constitution. Having said that, I do think it does need to be amended or even updated. There are some ideas in that that are positively archaic at this point. But the US likes to pride itself on having the “oldest active constitution in the world “so I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Geographic diversity, there is

Another thing I do like about living in this country is its diversity of geography and climate. I know by much of the world, we are seeing as ignorant “ugly Americans“. The truth is, most of us are ignorant “ugly “.

But one thing that I do hear, particularly from Europeans, who travel to America is that they can understand why many Americans don’t travel abroad. The one thing here many European say is that the 50 US states are nine I’m like a separate countries. Each of them has their own style, their own geography, their own climate and culture.

As Americans, we usually don’t have to travel terribly far if we want to see mountains or the ocean or even deserts. It’s true, that Europe has us absolutely beat on its history, but if one is just looking for variety, they can find it all over the United States. The Arctic, Polynesian Island getaways, even swamps can all be found within US borders.

Travel, you must

Of course, this is not to say that Americans should never travel on a period and quit the opposite, infant. I think that every resident in the United States, if they have the means, needs to travel to another country at least once in their lifetime. I’ve been to Europe once, when I was in high school, and it was one of the most illuminated experiences of my life. This past summer, kid 1 also travel to France as his “graduation present”.

I think it’s important that Americans see that the rest of the world doesn’t function like this country does. I’m not saying that we do things wrong or that we are bad. I’m just saying that it is important to see you then people and other cultures come to the same answers that we do those more quickly and more slowly than we do

Why in the hell do all my section headings sound like I’m Yoda from Star Wars??

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