I love my country. I’m proud to be an American. Other countries are wonderful and my life has been enriched by having visited many of them, but they are not home. Home for me is Midwestern, friendly, small town, hard-working, fun-loving, flag-waving, hand-holding, good-timing folks who care about their neighbors, love their families, and lend a hand to those in need. We pray for one another. We celebrate our joys and share our sorrows.

Yesterday in the United States we celebrated Independence Day. And so our great nation celebrated another birthday. That’s right! Our country is great. It has ALWAYS been great. It doesn’t need to be made “Great Again”. Once great; always great! Even with a Commander-in-Chief who seems to possess the intellectual maturity of a six year-old, we remain a great nation. I’m sorry. That statement is actually an insult to most of the six year-olds that I know. We need not define ourselves as a nation by the lowest common denominator. Trump and many of his key policies are very unpopular around the globe, and ratings for the U.S. have declined steeply in many nations, according to polling by the Pew Research Center. However, America still wins praise from other nations for its people, culture and civil liberties. Therein lies our greatness.

I am a patriot. But sadly I’m afraid that patriotism has come to represent a pretty narrow political view by some. I don’t believe that God should bless America anymore than God should and does bless all nations. And yet I remain a patriot. To me this is the beauty of being an American. We are a pluralistic nation. We are richly diverse. We can disagree with one another. We can openly oppose the political views of elected officials and vote them out of office. We can peacefully assemble. We can protest. We have the right to freedom of speech and freedom of information.

So I even though I am a progressive and an avid supporter of civil rights and equality for all Americans I remain a patriot. I’ll keep waving my flag and honoring our great nation’s founders whose vision of liberty and justice for all remains with us today. And I will respect and embrace your unalienable right to think that I am completely wrong.

Because this is what we do in The Land of Liberty.

Peace,

Denis