[Sixstrings]

They're singing "Solid as Barrack" right now on Larry King. I swear, I've never seen a President loved as much as this in my lifetime.

[mgibbons19]

This is a much more complicated question than it would seem many of the posters make it out to be.

It would seem to be a huge distance between "I'm proud of my country" and "My country's best" nationalism.

I love and am proud of my wife and what she does, but in truth she's just an average woman. I'm proud of some of the things I've done, but i'm just an average man. I love my children, and think they're brilliant, just like every other guy. But they're mine. And I'll fight to the death for them.

It is difficult not to be disgusted by some of (much) of our history and what's going on now. I'l start that list. Jim Crow, lynching, slavery, native genocide so we could have their land, wounded knee (one and two), COINTELPRO, waterboarding, Vietnam, Iraq, no bid contracts to the VP's company.

But the US is not Haliburton and Cheney to me. The US is reuben sandwiches from omaha and philly cheesteaks. It's summer days at lake michigan, sailing on lake superior and the chippewa and whites getting along (sometimes better than others) up there. It's the no nonsense pragmatism of the midwest, the uptight bluster of the northeast, georgia (just the whole damn thing on its own), miners in the appalachians, farmers in the plains. The good and the bad of car culture - everything from fatasses in drive-thrus to the shelby cobra. It's the 40 year old pothead who owns a bikeshop I rode with today. The wives working the chicken factory for health insurance. their husbands trying to make a business out of a pickup, a handful of tools, and gumption. taxidrivers, fishermen, roughnecks, ed abbey and wendell berry and hemingway

This place is like our own kids. Even if they're ugly and wierd and do stupid things, you still love them, and try to steer them in the best direction. Not the least of which because any place else on earth, you'll always be an outsider expat.

Its a cop out just to hate it. Although that's easy to understand. But to love it warts and all, and try to help it reach its potential is ... well, a little more sophisticated.

[AlexdeLarge]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')hey're singing "Solid as Barrack" right now on Larry King. I swear, I've never seen a President loved as much as this in my lifetime.

[oswald622]

your post sums up my thoughts as well, mgibbons. for a long time i was a rabid leftist who had memorized every american foreign intervention since 1898, and i had disgust for most anything that smacked of middle american pap.

but now i realize that much we have will soon pass, and i'm feeling a sort of nostalgia for everything i'm still able to enjoy. late night diners, rock and roll, an incredible diversity of people and lifestyles, and abundant freedom. from an objective and nostalgic perspective - as opposed to a patriotic one - i can now say that America was, and shall be for a short time longer, the greatest nation that ever was.

part of this is due to resources, but also to the ideology of political freedom and class mobility. far and away, though, credit must be given to God.

my 'pride' in America is like a son who never had much respect for his father - but who realized what a great guy he really was, only after he lay on his death bed.

---

meanwhile, i agree with schmuto on obama, couldn't have said it better myself.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mgibbons19', ' ')The US is reuben sandwiches from omaha and philly cheesteaks. It's summer days at lake michigan, sailing on lake superior and the chippewa and whites getting along (sometimes better than others) up there. It's the no nonsense pragmatism of the midwest, the uptight bluster of the northeast, georgia (just the whole damn thing on its own), miners in the appalachians, farmers in the plains. The good and the bad of car culture - everything from fatasses in drive-thrus to the shelby cobra. It's the 40 year old pothead who owns a bikeshop I rode with today. The wives working the chicken factory for health insurance. their husbands trying to make a business out of a pickup, a handful of tools, and gumption. taxidrivers, fishermen, roughnecks, ed abbey and wendell berry and hemingway....Its a cop out just to hate it. Although that's easy to understand. But to love it warts and all, and try to help it reach its potential is ... well, a little more sophisticated.

[PrairieMule]

Jazz Music and Western Movies.

Very American.

[PrestonSturges]

"...........Obama is no different than Bush. "Dramatic." Please. What crap.

1st, the guy, in the midst of a depression, is about to blow money on the most expensive inauguration ever.

What a jerk. But more to the point - what a Bush......"

What sweet sweet corporatist "Green"-taking-money-from-the-GOP corporate whore bullshit. Could you possibly get your head any farther up the ass of Fortune 500 media? Mmmmm Naderites and Paultards.

[Narz]

I'm grateful to be an American & I suppose proud of some of what we've done during my lifetime, there's alot I'm not proud of though.

[GoghGoner]

I agree that nationalism is mind-control.

There are a couple of things that I like about our Government and the citizens. There is much more that I dislike, though. I guess you could compare the US against other countries and see if that makes you proud, however, it depends on the yard stick being used. If you go by pollution, you cannot be proud, if you go by advances in cancer treatment, you can be proud, if you go by humane treatment of pows, you cannot be proud, if you go by freedom of speech, you can be proud...

[Tyler_JC]

I'd say I'm proud to be an American.

I'm proud of the opportunities that exist in this country for those willing to go the extra mile. I'm proud that I live in a country where everyone has the right to make a living for oneself as a small business owner, a right that has been lost to many in the world. You might never be rich, but a comfortable lifestyle is still possible. Taxes in this country are low relative to the rest of the first world and while some of our social service systems are lacking, there does exist a significant safety net.

I'm proud of the many cultural and scientific achievements of this country. Putting a man on the moon might be a cliche example but it takes an optimist, forward looking people to even think of attempting such a feat.

I'm proud that despite the disgraceful legacy of slavery, we are about to inaugurate the country's first African American president. I might not agree with some of his politics, but I still think it's great that race is no longer a barrier to the nation's highest office. I'm not one who thinks Obama is going to immediately heal all of our wounds but it's a step in the right direction.

I'm proud that the idea of America is so powerful that people die attempting to break into this country just to clean our toilets and pick our strawberries. Think about that. People risk their lives in order to get here. They don't come here to line up for welfare, they come here to improve their lives through hardwork. Now, granted, some of them are leeches or drug dealers or worse and I don't approve of lawlessness along the southern border...but it definitely says something about America that people are so desperate to improve their lives that they will move here only to be treated like sh*t and live in the shadows. If America was the hellhole that some would have us believe, does anyone think there would be a single illegal immigrant here?

I could go on for pages but put me down as a Patriot.

Patriotism is NOT Nationalism. You can love your country without hating the rest of the world.

[venky]

Great Post Tyler.

[Munqi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'I')'m proud to be an American. It is not about what we are at any given moment it is about what we aspire to be.

[Munqi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AlexdeLarge', 'I') am very proud to be American!! ( But then I know what its like to live elsewhere.)

You have been poisoned by listenening to the mainstream media trash America at every opportunity in order to demonize Bush and get their pigeon elected. "The One's" mentor Rev. Wright hates the country and his best buddy Bill Ayers wipes his feet on the flag. But I'm sure the messiah was not influenced by their tutoring and at least his wife is finally proud to be a citizen.

So now we have a whole government that dispises their country and its traditions and will do their level best to remake it into some new "honorable" nation. How very nice of them.

[Carlhole]

It makes more sense to me to say that I'm proud to be a member of "Western Civilization" - even though I would never say such a thing because I've never swum in any other waters than in the Western world. How would I know whether to be proud or not? It just is what it is.

America is a product of Europe. This country was built by swarms of European peoples bringing their culture and ideals to a new, ripe land. The French Revolution occurred in Europe heralding the end of Aristocracy; The Enlightenment occurred in Europe heralding the Age of Reason; The Industrial Revolution originated in Britain heralding modern economics and corporate power.

There are really only minor cosmetic differences between Americans and Europeans. A couple of hundred years ago, America had simply been new, virgin territory for Europeans to exploit. And they did so, in a big way. We are just the legacy of that. However, it was an unmitigated disaster for Indians and Africans. I'm not proud of that.

So... Aren't we all just a bunch of Europeans here saying how better we are than Europeans in the Old Country?

I'm tempted to say that I am most proud of American science. I'm utterly floored by the accomplishments of scientists and I'm deeply impressed by many of the scientific news stories that come out daily. But these scientists whom I am so admiring of, are people from all over the world.

But it seems like governments and universities in Europe, China, India, Japan, and elsewhere are just as supportive of science as America is. I'm proud of America's history as an incubator of great inventions - but I also think this trend was begun by Europeans.

Even Europeans can't take all the credit for inventing Western Civilization; that honor resides with the Ancient Greeks and Romans. That's where it all began.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')Even Europeans can't take all the credit for inventing Western Civilization; that honor resides with the Ancient Greeks and Romans. That's where it all began.

[Carlhole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')Even Europeans can't take all the credit for inventing Western Civilization; that honor resides with the Ancient Greeks and Romans. That's where it all began.

[Wednesday]

Something happened to me back in 2001 when I read the Patriot Act for the first time. Four years later when it was reauthorized, I was really angry.

It's hard to describe, I guess it was grief. Something in me died and I've been trying to understand it ever since.

I'm still hoping it was just an over reaction on my part.

Dissent is a form of patriotism. I guess I really do love America.

[Cloud9]

Mungi the aspiration was in the nation’s birth certificate. “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal.” You and I both know that is a lie. We are not equal. We are all very much unequal. Some are richer, smarter, healthier, and prettier than the rest of us. That is the way it is, but that is not the way it ought to be and we know it. When a black man could not come into a restaurant and order a sandwich we knew it was wrong. It gnawed at us as a nation until we made it right. Without aspirations that inspire us to become more than we are, we are condemned to the present no matter how squalid that present may be.

Jefferson could just as easily have said, “…all white men are created equal.” That would have closed the book on it. Do you think he wasn’t smart enough to know that history would not look on him as a hypocrite? Do you think he didn’t know that history would record that he systematically raped a slave girl for years? Of course he knew this. The great thing about Jefferson is that he wrote about what we ought to be not what we were. He inspired us to aspire for greatness. That aspiration freed the slaves and ended segregation.

[bratticus]

*pop*

[Cloud9]

And your point is?