I wish I knew how to feel about my country on this day of celebration. Should it be based on my own personal standing in the world? I’m lucky enough to be doing better than most of my fellow citizens, and as a whole, everyone above the American poverty line would be a prince among 80% of the world’s people. I try to be mindful of this and use it to keep my problems in perspective.
I was serendipitously born into a reasonably stable family in the suburbs in the richest country on earth during peacetime. That’s just a statistical anomaly, really; it seems like basing any national pride on a fluke would be akin to a statistical fallacy. So what does that leave?
I was in England in 2003, and my traveling companion and I were eating lunch in a little country inn. We talked politics with the innkeeper and she seemed very curious as to why the US was doing what it was doing, but she clearly did not hold me or any American layman responsible for what was being done in our name. The quintessential American tourist Rick Steeves went to Iran recently, and he said all the Iranians he was allowed to talk to were thrilled to meet him and showed him no hostility; they expressed the same sort of curiosity as to why anyone here would think our current foreign policy was a good idea.
The first thing I’m proud of is that we finally made Sting’s song from Cold War days come true: everyone finally knows that their so-called national enemies love their children too, and that it’s just governments that fuck things up. I think the United States has somehow helped spread that little kernel of truth around. That’s kind of like being proud of helping to “adapt” the Native Americans to smallpox and syphilis, but I think it’s important.
In the early days of the Bush Administration, I had the pleasure of meeting some Moroccan people. They were, at the time, the only people who were really happy with the American government. Why? Because they were able to express any unhappiness they might have with it, should they feel it. From what I recall, they said even expressing a little displeasure with a long line at a government agency could be grounds for a visit from the secret police. All the adults in the family had first- or second-hand knowledge of the consequences of a truly repressive regime.
The second thing I’m proud of is that I’ve never known an environment like that. Hand-waving and rhetoric aside, I’m completely able to take the Bill of Rights for granted because I’ve never lived in a world without them. I’m not proud of how poor of a custodian I’ve been of those freedoms, however, and I have no one to blame but myself for that. Complacency is an underreported symptom of the western obesity epidemic and a concerted treatment protocol should begin immediately.
So those would be the verses in my version of the Lee Greenwood classic. I hope I can be a part of writing more.