I've been fortunate to have spent a not-inconsiderable amount of my life in a country other than the United States. This is NOT to say I'm not happy to be an American because I am. However...
I don't really get the folks who say they're proud to be an American, looking at you Lee Greenwood, since as George Bernard Shaw once noted, "Patriotism is a conviction a particular country is the best in the world because one was born in it."
I suspect we might be a better world if each of us, everywhere, could concentrate on making wherever we come from or now reside, the best place it could be instead of a lot of chest-thumping and saber rattling.
To a certain extent, we Americans give ourselves a bad name when we visit other countries, and sometimes (and it pains me to say this), we more or less earn it. But I was a little non-plussed and abashed to encounter a very precise and concise compendium of other countries' citizens' pet peeves about us.
Maybe we could worry less about building a wall and more about building a mirror to get a better look at ourselves. Just a suggestion.
-bill kenny
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