DreamerOfImprobableDreams

I’m truly sorry to hear you’re not having a good time here. Good news is, there’s a big old world out there, with plenty of countries to explore! I sincerely hope one day you’ll be able to find a country where you’ll be just as happy as I am in the US. :)

And what of the many atrocities committed by humanity?

I can be proud to be American and a human at the same time. Saying “I love my family” doesn’t mean I don’t love other people too, and it doesn’t mean I think my family is somehow better than other human beings, it just means I love my family. Same logic applies here.

Yes, which is the single biggest reason I’m proud to be American: because our people’s willingness to stand up for one another and keep fighting for a better tomorrow, even against the most powerful opponents, even at risk to their own lives.

Abolishing slavery, ending Jim Crow, giving women the vote, becoming one of the first dozen countries on the planet to legalize gay marriage, helping win WW2, helping support Ukraine, donating more to foreign aid than any other country on the planet, the Marshall Plan, everything about NASA, best national parks on the planet, entertainment capital of the world, first country to land a man on the moon, the whole “nation of immigrants” things making us one of the most diverse countries on the planet.

And of course, none of that excuses the dark parts of our history, the slavery, genocide, imperialism in Latin America, among many, many others. But that brings me to the thing I love most about American: with the exception of the loud Republican minority, we’re a country that actually reckons with the dark parts of our past and tries to make up for them instead of sweeping them under the rug. And then we get to work fixing them.

We’ve made so much progress even in my relatively brief lifetime-- in agonizing two-steps-forward, one-step-back fashion, for sure, but that doesn’t make it not count. I’m so excited to see where we go in the future.

Also, given the lack of a clear successor, Putin’s death would likely lead to a power vacuum and infighting-- which means they’ll be too busy fighting each other to focus on attacking us.