For the Love of Country



I am a self-exiled expatriate. It isn’t easy to leave that which you’ve loved, respected and honored for oh so many years. I continued to love and respect America even after maturing and learning of, then having to admit to, all of her faults, missteps, unconscionable acts and less than honorable transactions. After all, no country is perfect and achieving or inheriting the role of guardian of the free world is a daunting responsibility. Thus, for much of my life I found it easy to look past America’s faults and her less than stellar actions, and continued to love my democratic republic born of a constitution that grants freedom and equality to all, in a system based upon principles of justice, opportunity and fair play. But at some point it all began to unravel and my love of country became sorely tested.

As I think about it, it’s probably my own fault, my own shortcoming for loving my country in the first place. It may not be such a good idea to love your country; be proud of it and strive to be a good productive citizen, but don’t love it. Love is too often the product of idealized notions that are impossible to live up to or sustain over the long haul. Love, as they say, is blind. And that is why so many go through life blindly accepting that which should morally and ethically be rejected.

Where, one may ask, is my sense of forgiveness? If I truly loved my country, wouldn’t I be willing and able to forgive her for past transgressions? Shouldn’t I savor the many positive aspects of my country and acknowledge the good that has come to the world as a result of American initiatives? Maybe. And I think I could do that if I saw evidence that the once greatest nation on earth was progressing once again toward those attributes that we hold in high esteem, that the rest of the world envies us for and that made America so great.

But that is not what I see. I see arrogance and condescension resulting in unilateral incursions into other sovereign nations, nations much smaller and strategically weaker, whose threats to our security have proven to be fabricated, exaggerated and sadly often the result of our own nefarious initiatives. Remember that Saddam Hussein was armed and supported by the United States when it fit America’s aims. The Taliban, too, received American support when they were fighting the Soviet Union. Then there was Fidel Castro, the Shah of Iran, the Contras in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile, even Noriega in Panama, not to mention more than one worthless puppet in South Viet Nam.

The principles upon which America was built and flourished are praised and quoted by multitudes of proud American patriots who refuse to accept the fact that those principles are being trampled on, ignored, circumvented and usurped by those who wield the power granted to them by those very same proud patriots. Rather than demanding that America lives up to its guiding principles and constitutional guarantees, American patriots eagerly align themselves with the left or the right, Democrats or Republicans, and fight, not for America’s rights, but for the “rights” of the powerful and wealthy interest groups that spend more money to shape and warp their thoughts, win elections and control legislation; in essence, more to gain and maintain power, than to promote or protect the rights and principles that made America great.

Along the way, Americans have developed a rather unhealthy and detrimental arrogance. It is evident in their unwillingness to acknowledge the superiority of any other nation’s attributes despite overwhelming evidence of that superiority. These Americans refuse to even consider adopting that which they consider un- or non-American and therefore inferior. This can be seen in negative attitudes expressed toward mass transit, universal health care, more paid vacation time, to name a few. After all, they reason, this is the Land of Opportunity, of Free Enterprise, of Rugged Individualism where the sky is the limit and anyone who doesn’t agree that everything American is the greatest, or at least much better than it is anywhere else, should just leave. They are convinced that actors, athletes, investment bankers, talk show hosts, corporate executives are all worth the millions and billions that they are paid because that’s what America is all about. They fail to take into consideration that all of those mentioned above would still be doing exactly what they are doing even if they were limited to a fraction of what they are currently being paid. For you see, they would still be amongst the wealthiest Americans and they would still have their status and celebrity and enjoy the good life. If they were limited, say to one tenth of their current income, how many of them do you think would decide to turn their backs on their careers and start interviewing for jobs in retail, transportation, food service, teaching or child care? Capitalism would still be strong and viable without the vast gap between the haves and have nots. Can it continue to prosper though, without a strong middle class? We shall see.

A nation so fortunate to have been shaped by the wisdom of America’s visionary forefathers, plus having the opportunity to grow and develop under the relative protection of its insular ocean borders, prides itself on being non-aggressive. America proclaims that she does not seek to colonize. Technically that is true, but in the name of self-protection American military dominance and economic might have brought bullying pressure to bear on weaker nations, negatively influencing attitudes and insisting on acts of compliance that often have proven detrimental to peace and stability.

I had hoped that the election of President Obama would signal a change. In some
ways it did, but mostly, I’m afraid, it is all rhetoric. Healthcare reform is looking more and more like a watered-down, insurance-backed fiasco. The criminals in the financial sector have been baled out by the taxpayers and are back manning the coffers and stuffing their pockets. The over-stressed “volunteer” military seems committed to endless, unjustifiable and bad wars. A nation that is well situated to improve foreign relations, to mend its economic ills and progress toward greater overall prosperity, is failing to do so.



Consequently I find myself adjusting to life in my adopted country. It is not perfect and I certainly recognize some of its shortcomings. But its people are not arrogant. It strives to be more egalitarian than authoritarian. It has both wealthy and poor citizens. But the middle class is strong and vibrant, not being smothered. My fear now is that I just might fall in love with it.
A.N. Pavia
November 2009