Home Is What You Make Of It
I want to speak with the youthful left. I want your eyes, your attention, for just a few moments. Doesn’t hurt to read, right? Might as well hear what I have to say, it can’t hurt.
Just think about your home. Whether it’s in a suburb or a city, a rural or urban setting, just think about home. Feels good, doesn’t it? It does for me, too. Home is a place where you can let your guard down, relax, not worry about anything. That’s what it should be. That’s why we have homes.
Now think about your neighborhood. It’s probably a good neighborhood, even if it’s not the ritziest area. You’ve got friends who grew up there, people you know, the nice lady down the street, the old man who you stay away from because he’s kind of a dick, and the regular people all around. Decent place, right? Could be better, could be worse, but it’s probably not all that bad.
What about your town or your city? The mall you went to when you hooked up with your friends, the place where you could hang out and maybe grab a few beers where the cops didn’t come around much, even the makeout spot that you could drive your car to and get a little action if things were going good that night. The grocery store, the drug store, maybe a concert venue or a stadium nearby for music and sports.
I had all that, and you probably do, too. I grew up in a good town, some of my friends grew up in a decent city, sure there were problems, but it was all manageable. It felt good to know that home was home, that you knew the place and there were few, if any, worries about being safe. It’s home, and if you take some minor precautions, nothing gets stolen and no one bugs you.
Y’know, it’s the same in most every town and city in the United States of America. Wherever you go, there are some basic things you can take for granted. One of those things is safety. Yes, bad things happen every day, but for 99.9% of the time, everything is A-OK. From Bangor, Maine to San Diego, California; Seattle, Washington to Miami, Florida, and everything inbetween; you can expect a certain amount of fair play wherever you go. It’s a pretty good nation, if I do say so myself.
No, I’m not appealing to your sense of patriotism. We both know that’s rather gauche. All the rah-rah stuff just isn’t for us. But even though there are some rough bits here and there, it’s a good country. You’ve gotta admit that.
Have you ever traveled outside the U.S. of A.? Maybe you went to Canada for vacation, or Mexico. Toronto and Cancun are nice. You may’ve gone to some of the Caribbean islands. I’ve never been to them, but I hear they’re nice. Ever try Japan? I hear it’s quite a culture shock, but well worth the time. Maybe you’ve been to Europe; England, France, Germany. So much to see, so much history, so much old-world culture in which to bask. Hell, I could skinny-dip in European culture, just wash myself in it, and doing it nude would probably be legal!
One thing you might notice about all the places I’ve mentioned is they’re Westernized. Kinda like the U.S., when you go to those places, you can expect a certain comfortable culture. You might be a little on your guard in most of those places — new environment, new people, don’t want to misstep and get in trouble even if you do feel a sense of giddy euphoria one can only get by traveling abroad — but for the most part you can expect a certain level of civility, a certain level of security, a certain level of freedom.
Now I’m not saying that only these Westernized countries have civility, security and freedom. All countries to some degree or another have this. I point these countries out as familiar sources of what we, as Americans, are used to. Even if you get shitfaced, go on a tear, steal a car and wreck it, in any of those countries the worst you’ll get is some prison time. As long as you don’t maim or kill someone, you’ll be punished with a fine and/or jail time, but you’ll survive the punishment, and you’ll probably learn from your mistake. You fucked up, you got caught, you pay your due, learn your lesson, go home and move on to a better life.
But it’s not so cut-and-dried anymore, really. Let’s compare a few things that we take for granted.
If you saw someone with a French flag sewn into their backpack here in the States, what would happen to that person? Right, absolutely nothing. German flag? Nothing. Mexican flag? Nothing. Venezuelan flag? Nothing. Iranian flag? Nothing. Really, you can throw almost any old flag you want onto a backpack or shirt or pants, whatever, and no one will give you shit. You can proclaim to the wind, at the top of your lungs, in any street in America that you love Communism, and you know what will happen? Not a damned thing. People may look at you funny, may even yell something back to you, but life would go on.
Tell me this: what would happen if you wore an American flag in any of those countries I mentioned above? N… well… you may fear for your safety.
From bushtheidiot.com:
Along with some kind words, Katie left this in the comments:
“Traveling this summer in Africa I was stunned at the deep level
of alienation of those on the continent from the U.S. South Africa, an
ally of the U.S., was unequivocally critical of Israel’s little war,
our support of it, and of course of Iraq. I was constantly being asked
what the American people were thinking electing W, and did we believe,
as he did, that God led him to invade Iraq. I was, needless to say, ashamed as an American. . . .”
You can certainly take from this a surface understanding that we should blame Bush and Israel for our bad image. But this has been going on for a while now. Americans have worn Canadian flags since the 70s (if I recall correctly) when traveling abroad just to avoid trouble.
That’s quite a contrast, don’t you think? Just about anyone can come to America and display their flag of choice and nothing happens to them, but if Americans do the same, they could be accosted, beaten, even killed if the mood strikes an angry mob.
You can see the latest travel warnings for Americans at the Bureau of Consular Affairs website (travel.state.gov).
This is not just for Americans, either. Any citizen of a Westernized country can be in danger if they go to certain places in the world. But if citizens of those countries came to us, they wouldn’t have to worry.
Why is that?
I think I heard someone say we’re bullies, and they’re angry at us, so of course they’ll lash out.
Possible. We can be heavy-handed in our politics, but we’re also the first people they’ll call if their country is in trouble. No one expects Russia, Venezuela or Pakistan to right a wrong on an international scale; everyone expects America to do that. Seems rather odd, doesn’t it?
Did I hear someone say sanctions? Or was that subjugation? Either way, it’s a good point, both relying on money.
We don’t physically subjugate people anymore. Hold on, hold on, Iraq is not subjugation because we aren’t enslaving the populace. We’re fighting against a portion of the populace and trying to protect the other, larger portion of the populace that doesn’t want to kill us. Iraq is a big can of worms, but you can’t honestly call it subjugation by the U.S. unless you do some serious verbal contortions and acrobatics.
As I was saying, we don’t physically subjugate people anymore, but it is in our power to monetarily subjugate them… but not really. We ask for other countries to do what’s in our best interests if they want our money. If they don’t do for us, we won’t do for them. To me, that sounds rather fair. Not only does that sound fair, we often keep giving out the money when people don’t keep their promises to us (
In 2005 the U.S. alone gave 27.457 BILLION dollars away. We just gave it out. And it doesn’t even take into account the 21 other Westernized countries who gave out money. Just think, that’s $91.52 from each and every American citizen… all 300 million of us. Imagine if we put that into a program to help fellow Americans having tough times. If we estimate 10 million Americans are down on their luck in one year, that’s $2,745.70 for each person; a decent chunk of change to help an individual person get back on his or her feet. If it’s a mother and two children, that’s $8,237.10 for that family. So I think that we’re pretty damn charitable to the rest of the world, seeing as we don’t have to give them one penny if we don’t want to. And further, we gave out 34 BILLION DOLLARS of our own money to foreign sources on top of what our government gave out. Nice!
We like to help, and I don’t think it’s wrong to ask that people who receive our help should consider our concerns in the global arena. We’re being nice to you, so be nice to us, please.
Am I right?
So basically what I’m saying is, we aren’t all that bad to the world. Can we do better? Sure. But we’re doing pretty good for the most part.
What worries me is when I see Americans who are disgusted with America and think we deserve whatever befalls us. The thinking goes that we’ve done bad things, so we should be punished. Our embassies get bombed, but we deserve it. Our ships are bombed, but we deserve it. Three thousand people are killed on September 11, 2001, but we brought it on ourselves. Our troops are killed in Afghanistan while we help to restabilize the country after taking out the government that helped to kill those three thousand people, but they deserve it. More troops are killed trying to restabilize a country after we take out a murderous dictator, but they deserve it because we’re being aggressive.
Really, are we THAT bad? Do we deserve to be killed because we try to keep people from hurting us at home and abroad? I mean, if we were THAT bad, wouldn’t they not take our money? If we were THAT bad, wouldn’t they stop calling us for help when things got really bad in their own countries? Maybe if we’re THAT bad, we can stop putting our young soldiers in harms way for their fights. Maybe, if we’re THAT bad, we should stop giving them money?
So do me a favor… take a look around you and tell me if we’re all really THAT bad. Is our tolerance for people of other cultures so wrong? Is our charity to the world so wrong?
Are we wrong?!
Is our home so vile that you could give it up and move away from it and be sure to find something better over the horizon? Should we maybe give in to those people who want to hurt us because we don’t think like them and therefore consider us evil?
Would you move to Iran right this minute? Would you move to Venezuela right this minute? Would you move to North Korea right this second?
If you think about it, our home really isn’t that bad. In fact, I can honestly say it’s worth fighting for. Our basic ideology is what has made us a great country: our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our Republic; and the people within, no matter how much we disagree with each other, can be proud to stand as one and proclaim themselves Americans.
We’ve made a good home. I think you can agree with me on that.
(Thanks to Jonathan McClendon and his grandfather for inspiring me write this)
An excellent piece. I loved this.
Thanks. Had to get it off my chest. Not too bad for something off the top of my head, if I do say so myself.
I’d say it’s better than that. Submit this to an online magazine or a real one, I think it’s timely and works well.
Hey this is Tony from Bush the Idiot.
I just wanted to say a few things here. You make good points and I enjoyed reading your piece–remarkably, it actually didn’t “hurt” my eyes while reading it.
First, yes, I have been to third world countries and have seen what terrible places the rest of the world has to offer.
I have never, ever said that America deserves what it got or what it gets. And I think if you asked most of my fellow liberals they would agree with that.
That’s why I hate it when people on your side of the political spectrum write stuff like this.
Second, my piece that you linked to was not about hating America–I love my country, the piece was merely expressing my sadness in the fact that we cannot travel around the world proudly as Americans. You even seem to agree that it can be dangerous for us while traveling abroad. The only point I was making was, that is very sad.
Now I’d like to move on to something substantive that you accuse liberals of.
Quote:
“What worries me is when I see Americans who are disgusted with America and think we deserve whatever befalls us. The thinking goes that we’ve done bad things, so we should be punished.”
No innocent person, anywhere, in any country deserves the type of terrorism we have been forced to endure–I have never suggested that America has deserved this.
And yes we do great things we give money away. But if you look at it percentage wise, we are THE LOWEST giver in the industrialized world.
We rank 22 out of 22 of the most civilized countries when it comes to giving away money as a percentage of GDP. We give .1%, compared to Denmark, that gives 1.1% of GDP.
As far as the terrorism that we have been dealing with.
I’ve only ever asked that we recognize that every action our country takes has an effect across the world. We have the power to influence whether or not people love us or hate us, and we should recognize that fact every time we decide to invade a country for nothing.
There is never an excuss to kill innocent people. And the terrorist scumbags can’t blame us for the things they do. Ultimately, the choice to commit terrorism or murder is up to the individual.
But what we can do, instead of destabilizing countries, is trying to stabilize countries through aid and using our power of the purse.
We have been trying for 5 years now to beat terrorism ONLY with the sword, and the only thing we have done is given the terrorists more excuses to kill Americans.
It’s time for a different approach.
Bush has been failing in the war on terrorism–I don’t think Democrats will do a better job, and I’m not being political. It’s just a reality, Bush has failed.
Instead of recognizing that and working together to solve our problems, people on both sides of politics only want to use that for personal political gain instead of making our country a better place.
Make no mistake, America is the best country in the world–I, as do you, only want to make it better.
Hey Tony, thanks for stopping by.
I want to be clear that this wasn’t aimed at you specifically. You had a quote on your site about someone encountering anti-American sentiments abroad, so I thought it would be appropriate as an example. You start off as if I’m accusing you directly, and what you wrote specifically, but that wasn’t the case. So while you may be of the “youthful left,” you may not share some of the feelings that others on your side of the political spectrum have expressed, and that’s good to know, but we should be clear that just because I quoted something from your site doesn’t mean I’m pointing you out specifically.
Now we get to the fun stuff. :>
No hurt eyes; this is a good sign.
Being the second lowest giver percentage-wise (at 0.22% of GNI — Gross National Income — in 2005) actually equals 27.457 billion dollars. Norway as the highest giver percentage-wise (at 0.93% of GNI in 2005) equals 2.775 billion dollars. Adding on the 34 billion given privately equals 61.457 billion dollars given out to foreign sources by the United States.
That’s a lot of cake, Tony.
Despite the fact that we give the second lowest percentage, the actual money given out far exceeds any other country on Earth; more than double of the second largest amount given, 13.101 billion, by Japan. Being a Libertarian, I find any money given away by our government to outside sources unconstitutional, but I do understand that people often times need to be bribed to do stuff. The kindness of American hearts is clear, and I’m sure we’d give even more if the government didn’t take that money from us in the first place.
As for “invading a country for nothing,” I’m sure you’re speaking of Iraq, and while Bush went on bad info and fucked up in other areas, we should definitely be fighting against the terrorism in Iraq. Our forces are being held back because of PR issues, and we become less effective every time the public freaks out about casualties. This is a war, people die in wars, especially when the enemy combatants hide in civilian areas. If we decided to win, and weren’t so critical of how we win, then we’d be cleaning up over there. It would be great if we could only fight against enemy combatants, but if they hide with civilians, and civilians actively hide them, then I think civilians should be considered giving aid to the enemy and should therefore be classified as combatants. Harsh, I know, but you don’t win by being nice (and yes, we can win, we just have to be less afraid of how we look while killing the enemy).
As for stabilizing countries through aid, we do that all the time. Hence 27 billion dollars of aid. However, When they pose a threat to our interests that we can’t overcome with talk, then we whip out the big stick and beat the living tar outta them.
The terrorism against the U.S. didn’t start with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is us finally acting against these little thugs. It will take a long time to beat them, but we have to believe that they can be beat, and we can’t allow our feelings of compassion to blind us to the realities of what they’re trying to do. They want to set up governments that are violently opposed to our ideals. These governments would threaten the U.S. interests globally, and can not be allowed to be created. They need to be stomped on like roaches, and we’re finally doing that… but we’re also fighting a PR war that we’re losing. Once we realize that real action must be taken, then we will finally be able to rid this world of a lot of psychopaths with delusions of grandeur.
We talked to them for a long, long time. Now we’re talking AND fighting, and that’s more appropriate since they never stopped trying to kill us in the first place.
Thanks for your comments, Tony. I hope we can enjoy more spirited debate in the future.