<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah<\/i><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Do I love my country? \u00a0Today is Veterans Day, so I guess it\u2019s as good a day as any to contemplate this question. \u00a0So, do I love my country? \u00a0Well, I\u2019d have to say no, but before you come after me with flaming torches and pitchforks, screaming \u201cLove it or leave it!\u201d, let me explain:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I\u2019m an American. \u00a0I was born in France to a German mother and an American soldier dad who was stationed overseas. \u00a0I grew up here in a town outside a major U.S. military base. \u00a0We went to all the military picnics, the Fourth of July celebrations, stood eagerly on the sidewalks downtown during the Armed Forces Day Parade. \u00a0I grew up thinking it was normal to see choppers in the sky and hear the faint echoes of field artillery pieces taking chunks out of the Oklahoma prairie. \u00a0From the top of Mt. Scott, a low peak outside of town, I could watch military jets playing in the sky and watch the impacts of their ordnance, waiting for the sound to catch up as it made the long journey from the crater to my ears. \u00a0My dad was a twenty-year army man who served his country honorably, including tours in postwar Korea and in Viet Nam in the early 70s. \u00a0I was in junior ROTC in high school and reached the rank of cadet major, being the second in command for the entire school. \u00a0I have rappeled down the same cliff Geronimo is alleged to have ridden his horse off. \u00a0I have fired automatic weapons. \u00a0I have put to death many watermelons and old LPs. \u00a0I am, in short, a military brat, so I think I have the bona fides to talk about America and talk about my view of what this country is. \u00a0Oh, and I\u2019m part Native American, too. \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
When a person says he loves his country, I always think that\u2019s a copout and is meaningless. \u00a0You have to define what you mean. \u00a0Do you love everything about America? \u00a0A history of slavery? \u00a0Jim Crowe laws? \u00a0Meth labs in the heartland? \u00a0Puppy mills in Pennsylvania? \u00a0All these things are part of America, an ugly part. \u00a0What about internment camps for Japanese in WWII? \u00a0Injecting blacks with syphilis? \u00a0America is the sum of its parts and not all the parts are good. \u00a0That\u2019s why I say that I don\u2019t \u201clove my country\u201d. \u00a0But I love a whole lot of the people \u00a0in this country.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
America is a huge country, with over 300 million people here. \u00a0It is Americans who make America, for good or ill, and I sure don\u2019t love all Americans. \u00a0I don\u2019t love the woman who put her baby in the washer. \u00a0I don\u2019t love the skinhead who has a portrait of Hitler over his bed. \u00a0I don\u2019t love the corrupt \u00a0politician who took a kickback from some business man. \u00a0I don\u2019t love the drug dealers peddling poison out on the streets. \u00a0I don\u2019t love a lot of people. \u00a0But there are many more people that I love, admire, and respect, and these are the people who make up the best part of America.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
First and foremost, I love the Americans you hardly ever hear about. \u00a0The ones who wake up, go to work, strive to provide for their families, come home, sleep, and get up and do it all over again. \u00a0They are the heart of this country and most of them are decent people. \u00a0I love the fact that they take responsibility for their lives and they don\u2019t ask anyone to bail them out or blame others for their faults. \u00a0They just get on with it.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I love those people who truly want to help their fellow men. \u00a0People who fought for civil rights, people who give in charity in such a manner that you don\u2019t even know they are doing it. \u00a0People who create jobs. \u00a0People who work with at-risk youth. \u00a0People who opened their hearts and \u00a0wallets to help victims of the tsunami in Asia several years ago, not caring that the victims were often Muslim. \u00a0People who donated money to earthquake-ravaged Haiti. \u00a0Nurses who help birth babies and doctors who work long hours and who donate their skill to do free surgeries. \u00a0Trash collectors who make sure not to leave a scrap of paper on the ground. \u00a0Politicians who rock the boat and say \u201cGee, that\u2019s stupid idea\u201d, when an idea is, well, stupid. \u00a0Moms who hang out on Facebook and tell you how cute your kids are. \u00a0The toll collector who actually makes eye contact and smiles at the people going through her lane. \u00a0Kids who are not shy and ask honest questions like \u201cwhy do you wear that thing on your head?\u201d when they see my hijaab. \u00a0People who rescue puppies from puppy mills. \u00a0Comedians who skewer all of us.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Okay, so those are people. \u00a0What \u201cthings\u201d do I love about America? \u00a0Well, first of all, I love the fact that I can sit here and write articles critical of my country and not be summariliy arrested or simply taken out and shot. \u00a0I love the fact that I can wear this \u201cthing on my head\u201d and no one can tell me to take it off. \u00a0I love the fact that when it\u2019s time to pray, I can simply stop and pray, \u00a0either by going to the local mosque, or by simply facing Makkah where I happen to be \u2013 in an office building, at the airport, in a park. \u00a0I love that I can bitch and complain about certain aspects of my country and not be considered disloyal (by some) and that when I turn on the lights, the electricty works, and when I turn on the tap, water comes out. \u00a0I don\u2019t have to bribe the cable guy to hook up my TV in less than a month. \u00a0 All my local grocery stores carry Nutella. \u00a0My kids get free shots to protect them from polio and whooping cough. \u00a0They go to school with kids of different races. \u00a0 Football and Nascar racing. \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I absolutely do not deny that there is so much good with America, but that does not blind me to the reality of its mistakes. \u00a0The Iraq War. \u00a0Crumbling infrastructure. \u00a0Lack of health care. \u00a0A tax code that needs to be scrapped. \u00a0Usurious interest rates that abuse poor people. \u00a0Bailouts for corporations. \u00a0A government in gridlock. \u00a0Torture. \u00a0Rendition. \u00a0Support of corrupt regimes. \u00a0This stuff is real and horrendous and overwhelming for many. \u00a0And it\u2019s part of America, too. \u00a0And I hate it. \u00a0You should hate it as well.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, there it is. \u00a0My relationship with my country \u2013 yes, America is MY country, don\u2019t doubt that \u2013 is complex. \u00a0I\u2019m not letting you off easy, America. \u00a0I\u2019m not going to just kiss you on the cheek, tell you I love you, and then go off muttering to myself when you do something stupid, like illegal wiretaps and subsidizing sugar and corn production. \u00a0I\u2019m going to call you on it, because for good or for ill, you are my country and I have rights over you. \u00a0Yes, you have rights over me, too. \u00a0I won\u2019t break the laws and I\u2019ll pay my taxes and I\u2019ll raise my kids to be good moral strong human beings. \u00a0Muslim human beings, because most of what this country needs is found within the pages of my Book, the Qur\u2019an. \u00a0I know you don\u2019t believe that, America, and it makes me sad, but I can\u2019t do anything about that. \u00a0Well, yes I can. \u00a0I can talk to my fellow Americans, one at a time, and help them to see what I\u2019m talking about. \u00a0And I appreciate it, America, that you allow me to do that. I just refuse to\u00a0anthropomorphize\u00a0you and treat you like you\u2019re a person. \u00a0A country is only as good as its citizens, and sometimes the good citizens get drowned out by the corrupt politicians, the media fear-mongers, the peddlers of hate. \u00a0Right now they seem to be in the ascendancy, and that\u2019s what I am speaking out against. \u00a0I think that makes me more of a true American than someone who simply waves a flag and shouts \u201cMy country, right or wrong!\u201d.<\/div>\n
![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0yMZuk8QSeI\/TNwWn-vFn-I\/AAAAAAAAADk\/7yzASCn9YOE\/s1600\/flag.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n