What I Love About America

The first time I realized I was a proud American was the month I spent in Italy in 1997 with a man who would become the father of my child that month, unbeknownst to either of us. The news was earth-shattering to him because we were worlds apart. We fought and then broke up over the best decision I ever made, to keep my child.

He complained about America a lot, and I tolerated it, but then I found myself protective and defensive of my country.

“Yeah, well, you sure like our Levis and our Marlboros,” I said. “Not to mention our movies.” I had him there. I knew in that moment that I was a patriot.

He was a pro-Palestine, anti-American, Jazz-loving bohemian with a Che Guevara poster on his wall. I loved spending time there, visiting Venice and Florence and his hometown of Rimini.

Things were so different. They conserved energy by hanging out their clothes to dry on their balconies. They rarely used air conditioning. They drove tiny cars. They ate fresh vegetables and never sold food at convenience stores. Snacking is not a thing.

We strolled along the boardwalk and drank Campari and soda at sunset. We ate cherry tomato marinara with homemade pasta, ate gelato, took three-hour naps in the middle of the day, had the best thin-crust pizza you’ve ever had in your life, and drank in the beauty of the old world, gazing at buildings that go all the way back to the Roman Empire.

It didn’t take long to realize the difference between America and Italy. This video describes it very well:

America is a young country, evolving and reinventing itself. Most cities here change almost overnight, but in Italy, they don’t really. I could return to Rimini, where my daughter was conceived 25 years ago, and it would look exactly the same.

Being there fills the heart with longing, but in America you feel like you’re making things up as they go along, like nothing — other than our founding principles — is set in stone quite yet.

At some point, closer to my daughter’s birth, he did try to convince me to move there. We’d make the best of it, he said. But by then, we hated each other, and there was no repairing it. Over the years, I have often asked myself if I made the right decision to stay in America and raise my daughter as a single parent. Could I have lived in Italy instead?

Maybe it would have worked out, maybe not. But one thing I know for sure, I have never felt the same kind of freedom anywhere but here in the country I love. I would say that I was glad to have raised my daughter here too, so that she could taste some of that freedom.

But she’s grown up in a different country than I did. She is now trying to make something of her life in a climate of fear, a culture of suffocating puritanism and mandated conformity. She is afraid to write books, or put anything out that might make one person upset enough to mobilize a mob to take it down, to shame her, to exile her. What happened to the free country I used to know?

Ah, but it isn’t this country that has suddenly become so oppressive. It’s the power that controls this country. That’s a very different thing.

America is still a place of freedom, you just have to learn to live as an outsider, to stop caring what other people think, and find open minds that will be interested in what you have to say, or at least tolerate your differences. It is possible to live that way, as long as the IRS or the FBI don’t show up at your door.

I am an American living as an outsider in my own country because I couldn’t survive living in fear as an insider. I know eventually, this moment will pass, and we will once again get back to the business of tolerating other points of view and giving other people the benefit of the doubt, but until that time, it’s safer on the fringe.

My daughter hasn’t yet reached that point. Most people can’t stand to be hated. I don’t blame them. I would never have guessed that I wouldn’t be the kind of person who goes along to get along, but now I know that I am not that person. I’d rather be hated than be complicit or compliant.

So yes, that probably means I would have been an accused witch in Salem in 1692 and probably would have been hanged because I would have never confessed.

My daughter and anyone else with a creative spirit who feels stifled in the current climate should remember that this, too, shall pass.

What I love about America is the First Amendment which defends our right to not just freedom of the mind, but freedom of expression.

In America, we believe in more speech, not less. We believe if one side has the right to protest then everyone has the right to protest.

America is this:

And it’s also this:

I was just listening to the History Daily podcast, one of my favorites, and I happened to hear the story of the CIA’s coup in Guatemala, something I’d never heard about. It sounded eerily familiar. If they could pull that off so easily back in 1954 to stop Communism in a foreign country, taking down a US president using many of the same strategies would not be that hard.

And then I was thinking if it was 100% true and the 2020 election was rigged (it mostly was, even if you just look at manipulating the media narrative and the Hunter Biden laptop, for starters), what repercussions would the people have to fight back against such an oppressive regime? Protests.

To demonize those protests, to treat American citizens like outsiders or terrorists, shows you just how anti-American the current regime actually is.

We might be living in a country ruled by totalitarians but baked into our Constitution is the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances” without fear of punishment or reprisals.

Eventually, those who protested on January 6th will have a proper day in court and not a show trial. How do I know? Because eventually, the mud is scraped away, and the founding principles hold.

I love that about America, that our founding documents are well thought through and well intact. I love a lot of other things too. I love that each state is unique and that when you drive across this country, you experience deserts, mountains, cities, small towns, bridges, schools, churches, mom-and-pop restaurants, and so much of our history fondly remembered by the citizenry.

Luckily, we have a thriving and growing gulag outside the utopia. The comedy is getting better. Like this satire of Patriot Front:

There is a film called Sound of Freedom, which has already banked a $20 million haul for a film that got no publicity from the mainstream media or film critics and yet is managing to crack the box office chart.

The film No Way Back about the regrets of gender transition, was canceled by AMC after screeching activists demanded censorship, yet again, we’re still moving in the right direction overall. You can’t stop what’s coming.

There is a lot to complain about. Those at the top seem to find nothing about America they even like anymore, let alone wish to defend. And that’s the main reason why their day has come. Whatever they’ve built for themselves as a New America isn’t enough to contain our even bigger spirit and unending innovation.

As for my daughter, she is now going on year five with her boyfriend, and they are settling into a small town in Ohio. She tells me her friends are all getting married young, and they are leaning into tradition in unexpected ways.

And that makes sense when you look at how the pendulum swings. An oppressive climate pushes people back, making them more willing to build a firm foundation and less willing to live risky lives of abandon. And the cycle begins anew.

I can’t bear the thought of her living so far away. But, and I never thought I’d say this in a million years, I feel relieved that if she does settle down and have kids, she will raise them in a red state.

Life is unpredictable. I never knew way back in 1997 when I went to Italy that it would change my life so profoundly, just I never knew as a teenager I would find the internet in 1994 and escape real life for the rest of my life. Just as I didn’t know in 2020, I would leave the Democratic Party and the Left and become an outsider.

One thing I do know now is that it all goes by so quickly. Too quickly. The people who spend their time hating half the country are wasting what precious moments they’ve been gifted with. Look at how much we have, how lucky we are, what a magnificent country we live in.

I am happy to celebrate America’s birthday today. I am proud to live in this outrageous, audacious work in progress.

Happy Fourth, everyone, and Happy Birthday, America. Time to celebrate.