"we still know that we are the freest citizens of any country on Earth."
Really? By what measure?
Feels pretty free where I am. Have you lived here as well? Or just read media and travel reports?
Not that I want a Freedom Swinging contest.
Seriously though, who would know who is freest?
Maybe "amongst the freest"?
The problem with leading with such a definitive and unsubstantiated statement, is that it invites doubt into my mind about the credibility of what is to follow.
What both sets of my grandparents went through to get here is mind-boggling to my comfy perspective. Then they had to deal with ethnic discrimination once they got here. Yet their desire to become "American" was unfazed and unbounded. They insisted that their kids speak English at home. Working hard to achieve the American Dream filtered into every one of their children, and into their kids, including me. America is "racist"? Please. Just look at our southern border - no other country is dealing with such an influx. Work hard, be grateful for the opportunities, and always, always appreciate Freedom and the Self-Determination it creates.
Yesterday I was standing in front of the deli counter at the local Publix we use in Ocala, FL.
The lady cutting the ham and the roast beef chatted with me and the man next to me.
The fellow next up was pondering what to get, while I was being given a sample of a new cheese . . . carmelized onion flavored cheddar. I broke off a portion of the sample and gave it to the man waiting next to me.
His skin color and his nose reminded me of my grandparents, whose family came to the U.S. from Bohemia in the last decade of the 1800s.
I moved to the side to give the gentleman room to order. He was perhaps a decade younger than my late 70s.
I asked him if he had enjoyed our national holiday with his family.
"How can we not?" We are blessed by the grace of God to be here."
A fellow a few steps away was yelling at the man slicing his meat order, and literally cursing in front of the customers waiting to place their orders.
"Too many angry people" my neighbor said sotto voice. I told him I agreed. During our visit he received a slice of another new cheese and shared part of the slice with me.
A few minutes later he and I left the deli counter to continue shopping. We pushed our carts up and down the various isle and ended up at the same check out line.
My new friend and I exchanged cell phone numbers.
Only in America could the great-grandson of people from Bohemia and Poland meet a recent immigrant who was so happy to have been able to bring his family to the little city I live in.
Only in America could we share samples of cheese and end up giving our cellphone numbers to one another.
Now I must call him and ask which Mediterranean country he and his family came from. I won't be embarrassed if he says they came from a middle east nation or even from eastern Europe.
In other countries"where are you from?" can sound like a threat. Not so much in our nation, where most of us are always eager to meet new people.
Our nation is so large that we almost always want to know which state our new neighbor came from.
My unplanned visit with a man who thinks the United States is the best place to live reminded me of people I knew in the 40s and 50s who sounded a lot like my new acquaintance.
Seems as though too many Americans have given up on our country.
And thus I am blessed to have been reminded of why so many people around the world want to become Americans.
Immigrants from communist countries are some of our best Patriots. BTW, the Hollywood Diner closed because of communist Gavin NewsomeGruesome lockdowns, not from some free-market practices.
The American trinity, the very three things the left in this country are working hard every day to destroy, are the three things these people seem to love and came to America to find.
I am an immigrant to the US, still not a citizen but I consider myself an American. The fact that the Constitution exists and is sacred blows my mind. It’s like the Torah of the Enlightenment. The fact that bunch of geniuses came together and created a country that is designed in light of the learnings of history and the fallibility of humans is ridiculous to me. Plato talks about a republic but he hasn’t founded one. The Founding Fathers did and I live in their republic. Just incredibly grateful and lucky. I think that John Lennon got the lyrics wrong “Imagine there’s no countries.” It should have been “Imagine a country founded by philosopher kings who knew kings were fallible.”
I love America the way I love my iPhone. It just works. What I mean is that if you have a goal and work hard, you will achieve it here. Nobody gets in your way, it is mostly fair competition. Back where I am from (Turkey), nothing works. Literally nothing works. You could be the smartest, most honest and hardest working person, and your life could be ruined because you criticized the government at a restaurant table. It’s a place where honesty and respect are not rewarded. The values are fucked up, humans are not valued, as simple as that. Most importantly, it is a place that just doesn’t improve and the rottenness has no bottom. Compare that to the moral and economic progress of America from 1950s to the 2010s. It really looks miraculous to an outsider. The conversation between Barack Obama and Roland Fryer would have never happened in Turkey.
I also lived in other places in the world, England for example. It just doesn’t have the optimism and open arms that America has for immigrants. In England, The Frenchies hang with the Frenchies, the Turks with the Turks etc. It’s an old society where where you come from and who you are connected to is so much more important. In America, this is important too but much less so. The content of your character, your intelligence and work ethic carry a lot more weight. This is difficult to put into words but it feels like immigrants immigrate to England or Germany just because they are better places to live but immigrants immigrate to America because it is a better a place to live your dreams and be part of an ethos of building, creating and being free.
I sadly think America is in decline but the ideals it represents are worth fighting for and I will fight for them because I am grateful to this country for giving me a life I could never have imagined.
Pursuit of Scientific Truth? Really? If the last 2 years didn't teach you anything with all the censorship and lying, not to mention the canceling of any Physician who wanted the freedom always accorded to treat their patients with any medication they deemed necessary to heal their patients, I don't know what reality you are living in. We also have for the first time in our history Political Prisoners for over a year in solitary confinement for crimes they did not commit. We had a President who won an election thrown out of office by an election that by any observable means was suspect. We have a person in the White House who is destroying the country by allowing anyone who wants to enter, by the Southern Border, no matter whether they are going to be an asset to the country or they have a criminal record or are a terrorist. They don't need to be vaccinated but our Military and Pilots and Police are being fired for refusing to take an experimental injection but people are outraged because Roe was overturned and MY BODY, MY CHOICE is not being respected! It may be far worse in other countries but that doesn't mean that the United States of America is anything resembling what our Founding Fathers wanted. They must be turning over in their graves. Loss of Freedom of Speech, Loss of Second Amendment rights, Loss of right of freedom to peaceably assemble, Loss of almost everything it means to be an American. I don't know what reality the people posting in this substack live in, but it certainly isn't the true reality of America today, Lets not forget the unfixable damage that this Resident in the WH has done to our energy independence and the economy and the livelihoods of millions of American who are struggling to pay for gasoline and food, both of which may be in very short supply very shortly. All the immigrants who fled death camps and oppressive regimes came to a very different America than the one that exists today, to say anything different is to have your head buried 10 feet in the sand.
As one who loves this country and all the good and not so good that comes with it, it would have been interesting if a Native American was invited to write a piece on how he or she loves America.
Who is an American? Anyone! Anyone who believes in the ideals of this country and is willing to work to help our nation achieve these ideals. I want people like that to be in this country; I am absolutely thrilled to grant citizenship and all rights to anyone who is willing to come here and work to make this country better in accordance with this country's ideals.
One of the most patriotic Americans I ever met was a woman who was born in the US to Japanese parents - exchange students who met here and got married. The woman moved back to Japan with her parents when she was 18 months old and grew up in Japan. When she was 18 or 19, she moved back to the US to go to college and stay here.
I met her when she was 45. She still had a very heavy accent. She was the most "Rah! Rah! Go America!" people I ever met. I was once watching a WWII movie with her and asked her how it felt when she saw Americans fighting Japanese...she said it made her feel like a child watching her parents fight. There are millions of people around the world like the writer of the first essay. They are Americans. I want them here. I am furious at people who only see the bad things about this country.
I know about our flaws. We have corrupt leaders; they lie to use about what they are doing and what they are having our country do around the world. But I don't blame America for the evils committed by our evil elite leaders.
I was born in Romania. I moved to the US in 1977 and took the oath of citizenship in the 80s. I married, and my wife and I raised four kids who know what an unusual and special place this is.
That's why the recent devolution on both sides of the political aisle is so distressing. There are lots of other places where political parties exist simply to destroy their opponents, and means are justified by ends. If we forget that this whole project is about letting individuals find their own path, about allowing opportunity and prosperity to follow hard work, and about very little else, we might as well call it quits.
"we still know that we are the freest citizens of any country on Earth."
Really? By what measure?
Feels pretty free where I am. Have you lived here as well? Or just read media and travel reports?
Not that I want a Freedom Swinging contest.
Seriously though, who would know who is freest?
Maybe "amongst the freest"?
The problem with leading with such a definitive and unsubstantiated statement, is that it invites doubt into my mind about the credibility of what is to follow.
But maybe that's a good thing.
Marvelous! Consider making it an annual tradition!
What both sets of my grandparents went through to get here is mind-boggling to my comfy perspective. Then they had to deal with ethnic discrimination once they got here. Yet their desire to become "American" was unfazed and unbounded. They insisted that their kids speak English at home. Working hard to achieve the American Dream filtered into every one of their children, and into their kids, including me. America is "racist"? Please. Just look at our southern border - no other country is dealing with such an influx. Work hard, be grateful for the opportunities, and always, always appreciate Freedom and the Self-Determination it creates.
This made my heart sing.
Yesterday I was standing in front of the deli counter at the local Publix we use in Ocala, FL.
The lady cutting the ham and the roast beef chatted with me and the man next to me.
The fellow next up was pondering what to get, while I was being given a sample of a new cheese . . . carmelized onion flavored cheddar. I broke off a portion of the sample and gave it to the man waiting next to me.
His skin color and his nose reminded me of my grandparents, whose family came to the U.S. from Bohemia in the last decade of the 1800s.
I moved to the side to give the gentleman room to order. He was perhaps a decade younger than my late 70s.
I asked him if he had enjoyed our national holiday with his family.
"How can we not?" We are blessed by the grace of God to be here."
A fellow a few steps away was yelling at the man slicing his meat order, and literally cursing in front of the customers waiting to place their orders.
"Too many angry people" my neighbor said sotto voice. I told him I agreed. During our visit he received a slice of another new cheese and shared part of the slice with me.
A few minutes later he and I left the deli counter to continue shopping. We pushed our carts up and down the various isle and ended up at the same check out line.
My new friend and I exchanged cell phone numbers.
Only in America could the great-grandson of people from Bohemia and Poland meet a recent immigrant who was so happy to have been able to bring his family to the little city I live in.
Only in America could we share samples of cheese and end up giving our cellphone numbers to one another.
Now I must call him and ask which Mediterranean country he and his family came from. I won't be embarrassed if he says they came from a middle east nation or even from eastern Europe.
In other countries"where are you from?" can sound like a threat. Not so much in our nation, where most of us are always eager to meet new people.
Our nation is so large that we almost always want to know which state our new neighbor came from.
My unplanned visit with a man who thinks the United States is the best place to live reminded me of people I knew in the 40s and 50s who sounded a lot like my new acquaintance.
Seems as though too many Americans have given up on our country.
And thus I am blessed to have been reminded of why so many people around the world want to become Americans.
Great articles and heart touching stories. We are a nation of immigrants and better than societies that don’t have the great cultural stew we do.
Immigrants from communist countries are some of our best Patriots. BTW, the Hollywood Diner closed because of communist Gavin NewsomeGruesome lockdowns, not from some free-market practices.
In God we trust.
Liberty.
E Pluribus Unum.
The American trinity, the very three things the left in this country are working hard every day to destroy, are the three things these people seem to love and came to America to find.
I am an immigrant to the US, still not a citizen but I consider myself an American. The fact that the Constitution exists and is sacred blows my mind. It’s like the Torah of the Enlightenment. The fact that bunch of geniuses came together and created a country that is designed in light of the learnings of history and the fallibility of humans is ridiculous to me. Plato talks about a republic but he hasn’t founded one. The Founding Fathers did and I live in their republic. Just incredibly grateful and lucky. I think that John Lennon got the lyrics wrong “Imagine there’s no countries.” It should have been “Imagine a country founded by philosopher kings who knew kings were fallible.”
I love America the way I love my iPhone. It just works. What I mean is that if you have a goal and work hard, you will achieve it here. Nobody gets in your way, it is mostly fair competition. Back where I am from (Turkey), nothing works. Literally nothing works. You could be the smartest, most honest and hardest working person, and your life could be ruined because you criticized the government at a restaurant table. It’s a place where honesty and respect are not rewarded. The values are fucked up, humans are not valued, as simple as that. Most importantly, it is a place that just doesn’t improve and the rottenness has no bottom. Compare that to the moral and economic progress of America from 1950s to the 2010s. It really looks miraculous to an outsider. The conversation between Barack Obama and Roland Fryer would have never happened in Turkey.
I also lived in other places in the world, England for example. It just doesn’t have the optimism and open arms that America has for immigrants. In England, The Frenchies hang with the Frenchies, the Turks with the Turks etc. It’s an old society where where you come from and who you are connected to is so much more important. In America, this is important too but much less so. The content of your character, your intelligence and work ethic carry a lot more weight. This is difficult to put into words but it feels like immigrants immigrate to England or Germany just because they are better places to live but immigrants immigrate to America because it is a better a place to live your dreams and be part of an ethos of building, creating and being free.
I sadly think America is in decline but the ideals it represents are worth fighting for and I will fight for them because I am grateful to this country for giving me a life I could never have imagined.
“ The Founding Fathers did and I live in their republic”
No, it is yours, mine, ours, work hard to keep it, and thank God you are here, as I do every day.
Welcome.
Thanks Bari.
Pursuit of Scientific Truth? Really? If the last 2 years didn't teach you anything with all the censorship and lying, not to mention the canceling of any Physician who wanted the freedom always accorded to treat their patients with any medication they deemed necessary to heal their patients, I don't know what reality you are living in. We also have for the first time in our history Political Prisoners for over a year in solitary confinement for crimes they did not commit. We had a President who won an election thrown out of office by an election that by any observable means was suspect. We have a person in the White House who is destroying the country by allowing anyone who wants to enter, by the Southern Border, no matter whether they are going to be an asset to the country or they have a criminal record or are a terrorist. They don't need to be vaccinated but our Military and Pilots and Police are being fired for refusing to take an experimental injection but people are outraged because Roe was overturned and MY BODY, MY CHOICE is not being respected! It may be far worse in other countries but that doesn't mean that the United States of America is anything resembling what our Founding Fathers wanted. They must be turning over in their graves. Loss of Freedom of Speech, Loss of Second Amendment rights, Loss of right of freedom to peaceably assemble, Loss of almost everything it means to be an American. I don't know what reality the people posting in this substack live in, but it certainly isn't the true reality of America today, Lets not forget the unfixable damage that this Resident in the WH has done to our energy independence and the economy and the livelihoods of millions of American who are struggling to pay for gasoline and food, both of which may be in very short supply very shortly. All the immigrants who fled death camps and oppressive regimes came to a very different America than the one that exists today, to say anything different is to have your head buried 10 feet in the sand.
As one who loves this country and all the good and not so good that comes with it, it would have been interesting if a Native American was invited to write a piece on how he or she loves America.
The perspective alone would be worth it.
Who is an American? Anyone! Anyone who believes in the ideals of this country and is willing to work to help our nation achieve these ideals. I want people like that to be in this country; I am absolutely thrilled to grant citizenship and all rights to anyone who is willing to come here and work to make this country better in accordance with this country's ideals.
One of the most patriotic Americans I ever met was a woman who was born in the US to Japanese parents - exchange students who met here and got married. The woman moved back to Japan with her parents when she was 18 months old and grew up in Japan. When she was 18 or 19, she moved back to the US to go to college and stay here.
I met her when she was 45. She still had a very heavy accent. She was the most "Rah! Rah! Go America!" people I ever met. I was once watching a WWII movie with her and asked her how it felt when she saw Americans fighting Japanese...she said it made her feel like a child watching her parents fight. There are millions of people around the world like the writer of the first essay. They are Americans. I want them here. I am furious at people who only see the bad things about this country.
I know about our flaws. We have corrupt leaders; they lie to use about what they are doing and what they are having our country do around the world. But I don't blame America for the evils committed by our evil elite leaders.
I was born in Romania. I moved to the US in 1977 and took the oath of citizenship in the 80s. I married, and my wife and I raised four kids who know what an unusual and special place this is.
That's why the recent devolution on both sides of the political aisle is so distressing. There are lots of other places where political parties exist simply to destroy their opponents, and means are justified by ends. If we forget that this whole project is about letting individuals find their own path, about allowing opportunity and prosperity to follow hard work, and about very little else, we might as well call it quits.
Is that Eureka town linked in one essay a real thing? It has a slick website but I can’t find a thing about it online.
Maybe Brittney Griner should comment on how good it is in the US vs her current situation