America Isn’t Perfect,We’re Merely The Best

There has been a lot of articles in the mainstream media in print and on TV saying things like America isn’t the best in the world and patriotism is on the decline. This is because of what kids are being taught in colleges by these radical professors and all propaganda from the hate America media. I think more people who haven’t been polled are patriotic than what the media portrays and most polls are run by people with an agenda so they slant them to fit that agenda.

The other night I was at my local fireworks display for the 4^th of July. There must have been tens of thousands of people there. The band playing ended with the Star Spangled Banner which tens of thousands stood up for and was quiet. At the end they all applauded and one young   Hispanic woman next to me in her late 20’s yelled out “America YAY!!!” and she meant it. I said to myself  “You said it, girl”.

The website Campus Reform did an interview survey where they interviewed college kids about being patriotic and is America great. Most said it wasn’t great and preferred countries like Norway or Sweden because of their health care. Boy, are they misinformed? Just go over there and apply for healthcare and wait 6 months or a year to get an MRI or a procedure and if their parents need an operation and are over 55, they may not get it, such is the way of socialized medicine. Since these kids were being interviewed on college campuses I can only surmise they are being brainwashed by liberal professors.

My faith was renewed in an article in the NY Post by Kyle Smith who stressed the virtues and greatness of America every young person should read so I am listing it here. As Kyle says in his article, “Born of a radical idea of freedom, our nation is a promise and project worth praising.” Enjoy and reflect.

For the haters, it’s open season on the American ideal.

Colin Kaepernick doesn’t like today’s American flag because it reminds him of police brutality and he doesn’t like Betsy Ross’ O.G. flag because it reminds him of slavery. I’m starting to think maybe Colin Kaepernick is not so fond of the flag, or of the country that made him rich.

Nike supported him by withdrawing the Betsy Ross-flagged sneaker. That’s right, the American flag, in any form, is now apparently a toxic symbol. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, actually praised Nike.

Meanwhile, the Charlottesville City Council just voted to stop celebrating Thomas Jefferson’s birthday in the city where he died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence he wrote. American patriotism has just reached a record low entirely because of Democrats, of whom only 22% say they’re “extremely proud” of their country. To celebrate the Fourth, America’s most prominent newspaper is bidding for the trolling Hall of Fame by running a video, titled “Please stop telling me America is great,” that argues how America is “just OK.”

Remember the distant past of 2016, when leading voices of progressivism were saying, “America never stopped being great” (Hillary Clinton) and “America is already great” (Barack Obama)? All that’s over.

American military, economic and cultural power dominates the world (you’ve never heard of the biggest movie made by China or France this year, but they’ve certainly heard of “Avengers: Endgame”). America leads the world in Nobel laureates, and it isn’t close. America leads the world in the success of our middle class, and it isn’t close. True, America has more poor people than some other countries — but that’s because we let in millions of people from poor countries. Saying “America has a poverty problem” is like saying, “Florida has a high death rate.” Florida doesn’t kill people, it just attracts a lot of old ones.

 “What about slavery?” is not an irrelevant question to ask about American history. Slavery is indeed our original sin. It’s important. We fought a war over it. You may have heard of it.

But to think of slavery first when you think of American history is like thinking of Charles Manson first when you think of men. America accomplished a few good things as well. America is a radical idea that had never come close to being implemented before — a broad-based democracy with government engineered for the purpose of zealously protecting our natural, or God-given, rights. We zoomed out ahead of the rest of the world, and we never looked back. As late as 1870, only 40% of the men in Britain were entitled to vote. Voting in America was not universal until women got the vote in 1920, but the US was miles ahead of everybody else in allowing its people to be heard.

Even more important, the US was and is miles ahead when it comes to allowing its people to speak. In Britain, people can and do get thrown in jail for things they’ve said on Twitter. (The 2003 Communications Act makes it a crime to type mean things on the internet. No, you don’t get a break for being young, or drunk, or for thinking you’re being darkly funny. The police actually monitor social media looking for people to arrest.) A 2014 headline in The Guardian reads, “Is it right to jail someone for being offensive on Facebook or Twitter?” No, it isn’t right. It is in fact quite wrong, and in America it is unthinkable because we have the world’s strongest protections for speech.

The First Amendment, like everything else about America, has not always worked perfectly (Woodrow Wilson threw Eugene V. Debs in jail under the Sedition Act for opposing World War I) but is a great and noble ideal, and we are far closer to living up to its full potential now than we ever have been in the glorious history of this exceptionally wonderful country.

Don’t take it from me; ask the world. A Gallup survey notes that 150 million people, or one out of 25 adults on the planet, would move to the US if they could. That’s more than the next four countries combined. “America remains unusually attractive to people from all over the world — in a way to which no other country compares,” Gallup reported.

Everybody knows America is number one, which is why, even among the hating class of Americans, no one ever leaves. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Spike Lee haven’t moved to France. Gavin Newsom isn’t moving to Mexico. Colin Kaepernick isn’t moving to Cuba. Lena Dunham, Bryan Cranston, Barbra Streisand and all the other celebrities who threatened/promised to move to Canada are still here. Hell, we can’t even get the Canadian-born whiners and haters (like Seth Rogen and Jim Carrey) to move back.

America didn’t complete the project of freedom on that broiling day in Philly, but that’s like saying your kid’s first day of school is no big deal because your kids can’t do algebra yet. On July 4, 1776, we began setting up the greatest opportunity for human flourishing the world has ever known, and our example continues to be the world’s beacon. The United States of America isn’t perfect. We’re merely the best.