Proud to be an American!
Posted on 07/03/2002 8:19:00 AM PDT by Hillary's Lovely Legs
The Fourth Of July is coming, so this may be appropriate. American
The following was said to be written by a dentist in Australia.
An American
"You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American. So I just thought I would write to let them know what an American is, so they would know when they found one.
An American is English, French, Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, Arab, Pakistani, or Afghan. An American may also be a Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.
An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses. An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.
An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.
An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. The best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes.
Americans welcome the best, but they also welcome the least. The national symbol of America welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America. Some of them were working in the Twin Towers in the morning of September 11, earning a better life for their families. [I've been told that the people in the Towers were from at least 30, and maybe many more, other countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.]
So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.
So look around you. You may find more Americans in your land than you thought were there. One day they will rise up and overthrow the old, ignorant, tired tyrants that trouble too many lands. Then those lands, too, will join the community of free and prosperous nations. And America will welcome them!
Pass this around the World!
WELL WE SAY " IN UNITY THERE IS STRENGTH".
America isn't everywhere, it is a real place and Americans are a distinct people and culture.
Proud to be an American!
And God Bless our families, friends, and George and Laura Bush.
Does this apply to the ruling on the Pledge or not?
He had long graying hair, a cowboy hat and a stretched balloon tire bicycle that would lend one to assume he was yet another aging denison of the anti-war/counter-culture crowd so prevalent in Eugene.
But that would be a mistake to assume that.
Artful was a Vietnam veteran. He had a silver star and purple hearts amoung the medals in a frame on the wall in his converted bus he lived in. He was also one man a Eugene anarchist would regret burning a national flag in front of.
As long as I knew him, he had medical problems that resembled those cited as part of exposure to agent orange, but I never once heard Artful whine that his kisfortunes were the fruit of the evils of the actions of others.
He lived life aimply and as best as his medical condition let him. There are others he served with who were lucky to have him as a comrade in arms in a contraversial war, some of whom arrived this week to pay respects to him at his wake this week-end.
I salute him and the outgoing tide of lives of aging heroes from his and earlier wars. They are real Americans, without the likes of this country will soon cease to exist.
Rest in peace my brother, you are missed; and remembered.
I'm sorry, you and I must have had different educations. I missed the Pledge of Allegiance in the Declaration of Independence.
Perhaps I am not communicating this properly, but in the Declaration of Independence it is written that we are endowed unalienable rights by our Creator. That Creator being God. We are a nation formed under God. " Under God" was added to the Pledge to distinguish ourselves from the 'godless' communists. This country is different from all others. We are powerful because we are united.
No one is forced to say " Under God" in the pledge. You are able to leave out the words, but to leave out the words for everyone is not, in my opinion, what makes us a great country.
You are so correct. I am an American, but I no longer feel that I am living in America.
Hell yes, ask any Mohican.
We are united by much more than religion. If that is all it took to make a country great, the countries of Allah would rule the earth. We are united, or used to be, by much, much more than just religion. What we have that makes this country so great crosses all religious barriers and should. It is a product of our belief in our own productiveness and what that can achieve that separates us from the rest of the world, not our belief in one spiritual power.
You know me, you know my children, you know they are being raised to believe in God. I will not ever expect that to be compulsory for other people's children, though. America is much more than a religious belief. To state otherwise is selling this nation far short of the recogition she and the people who brought her to this point truly deserve.
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