5 reasons why I am proud to be an American

I realize that it has been a long time since my last post... well over a year, but I am feeling particularly patriotic today and I am hoping to post a lot more this summer. Being Independence Day, I thought I would share some of the things that I love about this wonderful country we live in. These are the top five reasons why I am proud to be an America:

1. Universal Health Care. Criticize it all you want; it's not a perfect policy, but what is? Now all Americans have access to affordable health care. That is the bottom line. In a country that is supposed to be best and most powerful country in the world, it is ridiculous for people to be without health care and to be dying of diseases that insurance wouldn't cover because they were deemed "pre-existing". Universal Health Care is common sense. Yes, there are kinks to be worked out, but it is new, so we have to give it time. Hopefully we'll learn from other countries' pitfalls and in the future, be able to teach them a thing or two about it.

2. Diversity. While two-thirds of the US still consists on non-Hispanic Caucasian Americans, our beautiful country is becoming more and more diverse every year. For a country that was founded on freedom and diversity, this should be no surprise. We are welcoming more and more people into our borders who are facing religious and/or ethnic persecution in their own country, students and scholars to study and teach in our universities, experts to work in our premier industries as well as the uneducated, who do jobs that many Americans refuse to do because we are "too good" to do them. Is immigration a issue that needs to be handled? Absolutely. But isn't it incredible that our children will grow up knowing so much more than we did about so many different cultures?

3. Freedom of religion. I would like to think that when the country was founded, if Muslims (or Buddhists or whoever) were being persecuted, our forefathers would have welcomed them and made them part of this country. Our country was founded on religious FREEDOM. Here are the words from the Bill of Rights:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

No where in that statement does it say "Christianity". Christianity may be the most prominent set of beliefs in the US, but it is not the US official religion and I celebrate MY right to choose what I believe in.

4. Freedom of speech. I have a big mouth. Ask any of my friends, coworkers, family, in-laws, etc. I talk a lot and I am not shy about giving my opinion or telling people they are idiots. This being said, I enjoy my right to criticize the government, the president and whoever else I choose to. I enjoy reading newspapers and books and magazines, many of which would not be as interesting if the government had to "approve" them. (Let's face it, would The Artvoice get government approval if it came to that?!) We can say what we want, write what we want. Does that lead to a lot of people saying and writing stupid, idiotic things? Sure. And we should be careful of our words and teach our children to be careful of thier words, because in today's world, words can get you into trouble. But it's nice to know that if I want to call the president a thumbsucking lilly-lizard moron, I can with relative impunity!

5. "The pursuit of happiness". I highly doubt that this is a right given in any other country (please correct me if I'm wrong). Only in American is it your Constitution-granted-right to do what makes you happy. So if you want to make your living taking care of bees or painting houses or building windmills, that's your right. If you enoy hunting or skydiving or scrapbooking, that's your right. If you stay married for eighty years and have eight children, twenty-five grandchildren and fifty great-grandchildren, or get married and divorced ten times over and have 3 kids with 3 different partners, that's your right, too. We have the right to do what makes us happy and not worry about if it makes others happy. Maybe we get a little carried away with it sometimes, but we have every right to get carried away if that makes us happy! ;)

Happy 4th of July everyone!!!!!!!