Happy birthday, 'Merica!
Why the USA is still the best there is.
Happy 4th of July. Those of you who are regular readers know that I am bullish on the USA. Nothing in my 66 years on this planet has managed to dent my faith in our country. American exceptionalism is real. And I thank my lucky stars for it every day.
There are, surely, ebbs and flows - but that’s life in general. Our American experiment is strong as ever despite what the out-where-the-buses-don’t-run crowds on both fringes of the political divide (and their media enablers) have to say about it.
I notice some social media posts today citing various reasons why the poster will not be celebrating the 4th. They are angry about the Supreme Court, or Trump losing the last election, or inflation, or any host of other issues. Some are even talking about leaving it all behind.
As for the former, well hey, that means more hamburgers for me. Pass the ketchup, please. As for the latter, good luck finding your new utopia - and don’t let the screen door hit you in the fanny on the way out.
I’d remind everyone who’s upset and angry about some current American controversy, but who’s capable of a deep breath and some reflection, that we’ve seen difficult times, unrest and difficulty before.
If you’d been alive and living in this country during the Civil War, I’m sure that your optimism would have taken a hit. People that I personally know who lived through WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, the Korean War and the Red Scare knew darker days than we do now. Even people of my generation, who experienced the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, the unrest of the ‘60’s and Watergate, soaring gas prices, inflation, stagflation and recession in the ‘70’s, know what it is to confront things bigger than oneself.
Hard times beget strong people. You learn to put your head down and keep moving forward. And it doesn’t hurt to pause every once and a while and thank your lucky stars for all of the wonderful things that you do have - many as a result of living in our country. Almost everyone born in the USA won a lottery even before they got spanked at birth. That’s why millions of people walk thousands of miles, enduring tremendous hardships along the way, for a chance to try and sneak across our southern border.
Maybe Billie Joe Armstrong, the Green Day singer who recently renounced his citizenship over the Dobbs Supreme Court decision, would like to offer to swap places with one of those folks. That’d be a good trade.
None of this means that I am not down with dissent. Nope. The very ability to express dissent is part of the American fabric. Just don’t hurt anyone or burn down half a city doing so.
So I’m going to spend the rest of this day with my family counting my lucky stars (which are many). Happy 4th.
-M