"Listen,” I interrupted, “what nationality are you?”
“I’m English,” she replied. “That is, I was born in Poland, but my father is Irish."
“That makes you English?”
“Yes,” she said...
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
I am, by descent, English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, Dutch, German, and (if you go back far enough) French.
I am, by birth, an American. (Lucky me, and don't I know it.)
I am, by choice (my mother offered to pay my way to Canada during the Vietnam War, but I declined), an American.
Anyone who chooses to be an American, rather than merely chosing to reap the benefits of being in America, stands with me.
I don't care where you come from, what language you speak at home, even what foolish religion (don't feel bad, I lump them all into the 'delusional' category) you practice.
But if you insist on trying to make this country "just like the old country", complete with anti-science teachings, child marriage (even if you do live in certain Southern states), clitorectomies, honor killings, religious and racial intolerance, and similar foreign bullshit, well, then, you can stand right over there, just on the other side of the line that says "Welcome to the United States, You Ignorant Fuck, Now Go Home"...
Yet it is Americans that take their country for granted, and are ignorant about other people from other countries. Its a fact based on statitics that of all the Americans with passports only 20% travel regularly and truely broaden their horizons. Americans are also very lazy, arrogant, and self righteous. And stand on the Backbone of immigants that come here thinking its so much better. Yes freedom is free and all is free, yet how much is truely free..I love USA....and I agree with you on the subject of extremists from other countries coming here to change our way of free life and thinking...are they succeeding? Americans elected Bush? a decade of waste and nonsense so much so that Americans are least liked overseas because of this administration...now what?
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