Everyone knows I love America. I always have. I have a lot of national pride. America has always been a part of my DNA.

I don’t just love America but I love national pride. I love America because I was born here in the same way that I would be fanatical about Canada if I were a Canadian or pumped about Australia if I were Australian. I like to see people who get excited about the things that make them who they are.

In fact, I’ve never met a group of people with more national pride than Ethiopians. I thought I was a big fan of America but when I went to Ethiopia I found out that I’m a patriotic lightweight. My national pride pales in comparison to Ethiopian pride. Ethiopians love to talk about how amazing Ethiopia is. And I love it!

 

Annuit coeptis

(He has favored our undertakings)

National pride isn’t about thinking you are better than anyone else because of where you come from or where you live. It’s about being excited about the good things you are because of the good things your country is. No country is perfect. America has flaws like any other nation. We’ve made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot in our short history. And we still have a lot of growing to do.

But America has accomplished more in less than 300 years than most countries have accomplished in thousands. That’s pretty incredible if you think about it. (I have a couple of thoughts on that subject but I’ll leave those for another post.)

It’s sad that America is going through such a divided time right now. We are constantly at each others throats. We can’t seem to find any common ground on anything. And honestly we can’t even seem to respect even our neighbor if his opinion differs from our own.

The tragedy of my generation was 9/11. Everyone remembers exactly where they were when they heard the news of the airplanes crashing into the towers. It was awful. Every country and every generation deals with national tragedy. My grandparents had Pearl Harbor and my parents had the Challenger explosion and my generation had 9/11. But remember how united people were after that? Remember how many American flags you saw after 9/11? Remember how focused we were on each other? God forbid we see another tragedy, but it would be nice if we could reenact some of that unity again.

I think we need to remember some of the good things about each other. We need to remember that sometimes we have different ideas of how to do things but we have the same goal in mind. We need to keep in mind that even though we sometimes differ on means, we still want to achieve the same end. We can disagree on methods and still want the same result. We need see the American spirit in each other and remember to cut each other some slack.

We stand and fall together. Or, as one of our founders said just before signing the Declaration of Independence, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

 

E  pluribus unum

(out of many, one)

I love America because Americans are the first ones to respond when a tragedy strikes another country. Americans are the most generous people on earth. We send more money, food, education, supplies, and aid to people in other countries than any other nation. And it’s not just Americans as a people who are generous but it’s also individual Americans. In addition to the aid our government sends, individual Americans give more of their own personal money to help people in other countries than any other nation on earth. Americans love to give.

Another thing I love about America is our diversity. Take team USA as an example. If you look at the Chinese national team you will see all Asian athletes and if you look at the Mexican national team you will see all Hispanic athletes. If you look at the Kenyan national team you will see all black athletes and if you look at the Irish national team you will see all white athletes. But if you look at the American team you will see Asian and Hispanic, black and white, Christian and Atheist, republican and democrat, and every mix of people you can imagine. If you look at team USA you don’t see a race, you see a nationality. And that is where our strength lies as a team. And that is where our strength lies as a nation.

What makes you an American is not being rich or poor. What makes you an American is not being a Muslim or a Christian. What makes you an American is not being black or white. What makes you an American is being red, white, and blue.

God bless diversity.

God bless unity.

God bless America.