I have not always loved the Fourth of July. Mostly I saw it as a pre-cursor to my birthday ten days later - on Bastille Day, no less! I've never been one for parades much, and though I've attended the Stadium of Fire, I didn't exactly connect all the pomp with its circumstance. The Fourth was fun, with the minor annoyance of a lot of crowds, and then it was over.
Related to that is the fact that I didn't consider myself a very patriotic person. Like, America's much-celebrated freedoms were great, but were they that much different than a lot of Western culture? Was America really so special? And it sure wasn't perfect. You know the white guilt: The United States is filled to capacity with lazy, uneducated jerks, and it's getting worse by the minute. We value the wrong things, we're coarse and out-of-touch.
A part of me has felt that because many countries and cultures exist, constant comparison between those countries was necessary. So, if you're going to be "patriotic", you better make sure you've chosen the best country there is to have your national pride. But patriotism doesn't really require that. Patriotism is the love of your country, and love of what your country represents. There's no exclusion or inclusion of other nations in that definition. If anything, a true patriot recognizes that all cultures are striving for good things, and that loving your own country can pave the way for a better global community, too.
We give the USA the best of ourselves, not because America needs to be the number one place to live, but because we believe that everyone around us deserves our best. We believe in crowning (America's) good in brotherhood, because we have all been created equal, and thus deserve honesty, truth, virtue, and benevolence.
And with that cleared up, I realized that I love, truly love, what my country represents. I sing the words of "America the Beautiful" and my heart sings right along. I am grateful for what my country has given me, and I want to be a good citizen so that others can feel those same blessings. America! America! May God thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness and every gain divine!
