Proud to Be an America

My Status on facebook generated a lot of comments last night and for good reason apparently. I merely commented that “(I) Wanted to know what’s different today that’s made everyone suddenly proud of their country”. I suppose it stems back to the campaign and the now (in)famous quote of Michelle Obama saying that for the first time in her life she was proud of her country. Yesterday and last night, the media was full of sound bites of people claiming to be proud of their country.

What I want to know is really what has changed that suddenly makes everyone so proud? Its as if the last 250 years of American History aren’t anything to be proud of. Yes, the fact that as a country we have elected and installed our first Black (I refuse to call him African American as he is as American as I am) President and while that was unthinkable 50 years ago, its not all that uncommon of a thing in todays global society. Does it speak well of the country? Yes, but so does the fact that we continually strap a rocket to the six people and launch them in to space, or the fact that we some how managed to cross breed a fish with Michael Phelps to produce the worlds fastest water animal.

America has always been a country where anyone with the will to succeed could and yesterday was just another example of that. I can understand how witnessing yesterday’s events could make someone happy to be an American or even reinstill the sense of hope that many felt was lost, but pride in one’s country? If you had lost your pride in the United States of America in the first place then something bigger is amiss.

As for me, I woke up on January 20th with as much pride in the United States as I had the day before, just a little more reassured about the advances we’ve made.

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2 Comments to “Proud to Be an America”

The Hawg! 21 January 2009 at 4:22 pm #

I can’t help but agree with you. The country is as great today as it was last week, last month, last year, last century, etc.

However, some people are proud of what represent COULD be rather than what it IS. The “could be” fans in the crowd are satisfied for a month or so, at least.

The Hawg!’s last blog post..Remembering The King

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mma gear 22 January 2009 at 10:48 pm #

I agree with you also, I think people have always been proud of our country and are just saying that they “more” proud, only because of such an incredible change.

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