Posted on 07/03/2021 4:45:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
A reporter for a Ukrainian television network asked to interview me this week for a 4,th of July story they’re running on declining American patriotism. He had read a piece I wrote on the topic, and seemed genuinely baffled as to why so many Americans, like Olympians Gwen Berry and Megan Rapinoe and so many others, are down on their country.
It’s easy to understand his confusion. In the last six years, nearly five million Ukrainians hoping to move to the U.S. have applied for our green card lottery. How could I explain to this man why so many Americans don’t appreciate a country that millions of others around the world aspire to live in?
American pride appears to be at an all-time low. When Gallup first started asking Americans how proud they were of their country months before the 9/11 attacks, 87 percent claimed to be “extremely” or “very” proud and only 2 percent said they were only “a little proud” or “not at all” proud. In 2020, the extremely/very proud cohort fell to an all-time low of 63 percent, while the only a little proud/not all proud group swelled from 12 percent to 21 percent in a year.
There’s no magic bullet solution to remedy this problem, but I’d like to see more young people spend time abroad either studying, volunteering or just traveling, outside the places where American tourists typically venture. Countries are just like spouses; we tend to take them for granted. And the longer you stay in any country without a break, the easier it is to lose perspective.
If you dig down into the results of recent polling on declining patriotism, it’s clear that our younger generations are decidedly less patriotic. This speaks to our education system and the way American history has been taught in recent years. Young people who have been forced to sit through endless lectures about how America was founded by racists with zero context or perspective on the times, can’t help but have mixed feelings about the country.
Obviously we have to strip anti-American dogma out of curriculums across the country. But travel can also be the world’s best classroom, and there’s no substitute for seeing what life is like in other parts of the world with one’s own eyes. I’ve been to Ukraine and 70 other countries, some nice, some not-so-nice. And so, when I hear, for example, Joe Biden, recently refer to our “crumbling infrastructure” I laugh, thinking of all the truly crumbling roads and bridges I’ve seen overseas in my lifetime. When I repeatedly hear that our country is “systemically racist” I think of the many other countries I’ve visited and lived in that are light years behind us on civil rights issues.
I understand that not everyone has the resources or opportunities to spend time abroad. But anti-Americanism isn’t prevalent among the poor; it’s more of an affluenza disorder, common among elites. Those whom America has blessed the most, including countless athletes and celebrities, are often the least grateful.
Many of these folks have been overseas, but though they champion developing countries while decrying Eurocentric viewpoints, guess where they gravitate when they leave the country? You guessed it, Western Europe. I’d love to see Americans who are down on our country spend more time in the backstreets of Rawalpindi and Caracas and less time strolling their favorite arrondissements of Paris for some perspective.
Global travel can be as expensive or as cheap as you make it. As part of the research for my new book, Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed & the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth, I got to know many of the world’s most traveled people. While some of these folks are undeniably affluent, several have very humble backgrounds. For example, one of the world’s most traveled people is a Spaniard named Jorge Sanchez, who has been to every country in the world and financed it all by doing odd jobs, washing dishes, and other menial labor.
The world’s most traveled American is Don Parrish, who lives in a middle-class suburb of Chicago. He has been to not just every country in the world, but also every major region of every country plus scores of hard-to-reach islands and geographic oddities that only geography nerds have ever heard of. He’s often asked what his favorite country is. Don told me that his answer is always the same: the United States of America. His travels have given him an appreciation for home that he never could have acquired in Chicago.
I served our country as a Foreign Service Officer, working in American embassies in Macedonia, Trinidad, and Hungary. The long lines of people waiting to apply for visas were a constant reminder of our country’s enduring appeal, one that I’ve never forgotten. Living abroad, I also encountered American expats who are happy overseas and never want to return to our country. That’s their prerogative and if they’re happier elsewhere, good for them. But in my experience, many more Americans, particularly those who spend considerable chunks of time in less developed countries, appreciate America in a new way when they return.
Even if you can’t travel abroad, it’s easy to use the web to meet people from other countries and research what’s going on around the world. Our news media barely covers international news, so the onus is on us to seek out information in order to gain a global (not a globalist) perspective. The more you learn about the rest of the world, the more you realize that none of our problems are unique. As the French philosopher Auguste Comte once said, “Everything is relative; and only that is absolute.”
Americans can disagree on politics and just about everything else. But as we celebrate our independence this weekend, there is one thing we must agree on: love of country. Alexis de Tocqueville said, “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” It’s time for us to convince the not-so-patriotic among us that they don’t have to love everything about our country to appreciate how blessed we are to be Americans.
Kinda like when you take something for pain and dont really notice it helping, until 2 days after you have run out.
I used to take collagen for my pain. Run out for a couple of days and you will know it.
The left has to destroy the history of America, to make our young ashamed of our history by pushing a negative , biased, and even fictional version of events. We are forced through various taxes to finance this hate essentially paying for our own destruction.
This was true for me.
In my military career, I served 11 years overseas.
I was in stationed Australia, Italy, Germany and spent a long time in Greece and the UK closing various bases.
Everyone of these places was a nanny state on steroids were one had to get permission to do some of the most mundane things.
And don’t even get me started on the German penchant for following unwritten rules, such as sweeping the sidewalks by your house or no noise on Sunday.
Actually, those are good rules in the city or closely packed villages—but nobody in my village told me and for every little thing I had to learn the hard way. You’re just supposed to know. That’s ingrained.
“American pride appears to be at an all-time low.”
Well, when our politicians give people on all sides reasons to hate the country, you’ll get low numbers. In recent decades, our ‘education system’ brainwashed most of their subjects to hate America - while conservatives fed their kids into those horrid institutions, since they were ‘free’ and thereby allowing them to keep up with the Jones’.
More recently, we’ve seen one party, the Democrats, OBVIOUSLY engage in huge voter fraud, while the party that was victimized, the Republicans, agreed to look the other way, since it also got rid of a person they hated, Trump. Hard to support a country where free and fair elections are a thing of the past.
So, hard to see why anyone should be surprised with Americans being sick of their own country - our elected people, along with conservatives who think owning an F150 is more important than protecting their kids from our schools, have given nearly every American great reasons to hate this place.
How do i say “to hell with those self-entitled spoiled cupid stunts” in Ukrainian?
I was in Germany for 6 years as an Army Officer. I can verify there is no place like home.
American suburbs and rural areas still contain some of the greatest places in the world.
American cities have fallen well below the international standard.
Spend a couple of weeks in Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Singapore - then come back to Los Angeles. You will see how drastically collectivist leadership has dragged us backwards.
It's embarrassing what foreign tourists making their first trip to the USA - who end up touring these urban hellholes - see as an introduction to our country.
Germany is in my history too. I spent 75 there during the malaise Carter time. Couldn’t wash clothes and hang them outside except on certain days. Had a farmer friend there who had a large family farm of maybe 200 acres plus another 200 in woodland. Had to plant what they told him, and the woods were open to the general public by law. The government when in regularly and cut whatever they deemed necessary. He couldn’t sell any land. I t had to be a farm and he couldn’t split it up between his children either. Then there’s the Meldeamt that you have to notify if you relocate.
Kissed the ground when I came home. Used to think those German rules if foisted on Americans would cause a rebellion.
Not so sure now.
I 100% agree…lived in Japan and Singapore, from your examples, and the differences are astonishing.
We need a Peace Corp-like program called Junior Summers Abroad. High schoolers spending time in s—t hole countries teaching English. The next summer they’ll be more appreciative as they go on their own. Start with the Caribbean countries-closer. Host countries will know what’s going on.
Most Americans think that the country needs fixing, it’s a case where liberals think it should become even more like socialist countries in Europe (or Canada), and conservative Americans thinking it should change back towards an ideal that probably never existed totally but could be described as the America of the past.
Then in various other countries you have the same split, people who dislike America (mostly those of the left in those countries) and would not want to come to America, and those who like America and would like to live or at least visit there (I fall into this category, I would be happy enough to visit more frequently, but my “best case” scenario would be a chance to live in the desert southwest region which I love to visit). Most people who seek to emigrate to America from prosperous countries are probably either more conservative than the rest of the populations there, or motivated entirely by economic considerations. Obviously most people who want to go to America from less prosperous nations have an economic reason, but some might have a political reason too. I think on balance, your immigrants from developed nations are likely to be a net gain of conservative voters, and those from other nations a net loss.
If you could get me in, that would be a net gain of one for sure. I have never once voted for any leftist party in Canada and would consider anything from the RINO option to the further left to be a no go zone. People might think an immigrant would bring their “(national) values” with them, but some immigrants just want to get away from those values after a lifetime of having to fight them off. “Canadian values” are pretty much Obama values, so you can guess what I think of those.
My parents emigrated from the UK to Canada when I was quite young. I rather wish they had emigrated to the U.S.A. but I don’t think that was ever on their radar, they wanted to stay in the Commonwealth. Fat lot of good that did them or me, I certainly respect the Queen but the rest of them are a very sad lot indeed (and now you have your own set, Canada wasn’t good enough for them either).
You would be welcome here-just bring 3 kids with you. we’ll need them.
A large chunk of Philipino immigrants would be welcome in my thinking as they like this country. When you throw in the overcrowded population, the heat, and the corruption over there they’d appreciate it much more being here. That may be the secret and Trump was working on it.
And you spent your career in developed countries...I spent 20 years in the mining industry in mostly Third World, (4th?) countries.
Try living in a small tent in the boonies of Peru at 15,000 feet above sea level, eating whatever the cook could catch or buy from the locals and you get a good idea of what advanced societies are.
After working for several years in Africa, it doesn't take long to realize there is no, zero, nada place like the USA...but I knew this already!!
Nice home page comment and great comments in your post.
I have worked a lot in Canada, BC, the Yukon, (my favorite!), Ontario and I experienced much of what you mentioned...conservative Canadians tend to really like America and the leftist nutters never have a good word to say.
While working in very remote camp jobs on mining projects, most of the people I worked with absolutely drooled over my description of my gun collection and the fact that I can carry a concealed pistol into Walmart.
All these folks are the same as the people where I live in the rural Mountain West...they like hunting and fishing and just want to be able to work hard and be left alone.
I want to return to Dawson City for the Summer Solstice celebration...what a fun place that is.
Whenever I come home from overseas I have the same feeling. My heart swells with pride and happiness. When my cruise passed the Statue of Liberty in New York, I cried like a baby.
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