Grateful to be American on the Fourth and Every Other Day

 We know the United States is rich and powerful, and suffers from hubris and is mighty flawed and too often hypocritical. It is a large, prosperous place of opportunity, but also has plenty of economic and social problems.

    But, from every war and peacetime accomplishment, I must say that this is the land of overall good. Capitalism is "bad" or immoral, the socialists and communists cry for over a century?

    Look at the sad and awful legacies of those attempts in China and North Korea alone! Despicable. Deprave. Slavery, government sanctioned rape, hunger, starvation, oppressive lack of freedom.

   No, we will not abide that. We cannot. We would rather die. Even our rich and powerful will die to crush these despicable tyrannies and despots, evil systems of authoritarian control and disgusting power over human will.

    Russia? Please. We will always oppose your strong-armed and cruel, sadistic ways. You cannot wipe out your neighbors, and you prop up the worst regimes in the world, like Assad in Syria.

    We threw off the British, the strongest kingdom in the world over two hundred years ago. They were our best enemies ever, possessing many inklings of democracy since the Magna Carta centuries before our nation's Declaration of Independence. We hashed out and signed the Constitution, collectively ratified one of the best documents ever. The Bill of Rights and our multiple amendments, to include the Articles added under Abraham Lincoln and our crushing the wayward confederates who were based on the economy of human chattel.

    We take on and defeat the big, mean, gross ones: Hitler, the Japanese autocrats, the Communists of many lands, the terrorists and despots of many more.

    Yes, we have continued to be the world's best stalwart hope and promise. We are grateful and acknowledge our strong and peace-loving allies.

    And I am forever grateful and proud to be a part of it, and working on the errors and flaws, celebrating the overall achievements and presence.

    Happy Independence Day to us and to all others that choose to enforce freedom and liberty.

    

    

For those that think that we put too much money and effort into our military and arms? Think that over very carefully. I challenge you.

    We are as free and prosperous as we are today because around a million veterans have died in the last 240 years so that you can so loftily and mistakenly opine.

    Stars and Stripes forever, land where my fathers [and fellow citizen soldiers died]. For me, you, and every person that you have ever known. Buried and spread out across every continent and ocean of the planet.

    I have but one life to give to my country, and I am so glad I have been given that right and privilege.

    I love the country that I was born and raised in not because that I am beholden to it as a native born of her, but because I know that it is the best bastion of freedom that exists. I will sacrifice and love it to the death. I will live for it, as I do, and I would take a bullet for it when the time comes.

    To protect and serve, and in the end give all for the place that has saved the world time and time again.

    I am sorry for the natives of our proud land killed and persecuted, and those of other lands innocently killed. It has happened. However, overall, we save more than we bring down under ruin.

    We, the United States of America, we are a place and a powerful system, a space of committed peoples and institutions where all humans are learning to be counted and counted upon. Sign me up, again and again.