I'm An American: Enough Said

By Michael Willard 

I’m an American. That should be all I need to say. 

I believe in the sanctity of the documents written by the wisest of men called the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, the umbrellas for our freedoms. 

More than anything, those early documents are about our values, which today seem faded as stone-washed jeans and nearly as forgotten as bell bottoms and leisure suits. 

To me, the headline “all men are created equal” represents a big tent spanning the globe—at least it should in modern times when communication is quick as a cat’s wink and all nations entwined. 

I also realize the contradiction that the principle writer of that declaration, our third president, Thomas Jefferson, also kept slaves, as did many others who signed America’s holy covenant. 

Even from the very beginning—and surely today as we beat our chest proclaiming the mantra “greatest most powerful nation on earth”—we have never been perfect. 

We’ve never come close, nor has anyone else. 

If you believe we are Muhammad Ali-style great, you are not really patriotic. You are wearing blinders or perhaps your red "Make America Great Again" caps are shading your view. 

To note, the philosophy of Manifest Destiny and the treatment of native Americans was primarily about greed, taking something that really didn’t belong to us. But, without those transgressions, the argument goes we would not be these United States. 

Today, though, with more than 40 per cent of Americans tolerating the most incompetent, most immoral, most harmful debaser of those documents, I am saddened and galled. 

I question our future, and whether men and women of good sense and character can tact back to that for which we Americans once stood rather proudly. 

It is where our very worth is domiciled. 

This has absolutely nothing to do with standing or kneeling for the Star Spangle Banner or a Pledge of Allegiance. It actually has nothing to do with being conservative or liberal in thinking. 

It has nothing to do with whether one supports abortion or pro-life, whether one favors more or less gun control, or even whether one believes a big, beautiful wall should adorn the southern border.

It all goes back to those historic documents which shout American values, values which have seen the emergence of good men in times of crisis to keep us on the right and righteous path. 

These thoughts rumble through my mind now as I wait a flight in the Frankfurt, Germany airport heading back to the US. We are coming off a month in Turkey where we have a home. 

I have papers as a permanent resident of Ukraine and we have an apartment there. I call southern Turkey my home, but I vote about 20 miles from Disney World in Central Florida. 

After spending 22 years in Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, we have lived in Orlando for four. Orlando is a beautiful city, though I am not sure it will ever be my home, but who knows. 

The weather and people are nice and the traffic tolerable. The gated community and lifestyle are powderpuff safe. It is, though, a gigantic yawn when I consider new horizons.

For the record, I am Georgia born, a son of the South, though I have traveled the world practicing my craft of social entrepreneurship, mixed with a measure of adventure. 

But, for sure, I am an American, through and through. 

However, given my views on Donald Trump, some have suggested I go back to where ever-where ever is. I am mystified by that. It is contrary to my country’s sense of purpose. 

Sitting in an airport, I read that some yahoo official in Donald Trump’s government wants to change the inscription on the Statute of Liberty. He said it only applies to Europeans. 

I see where the immigration police, ICE, is raiding chicken plants in Mississippi rounding up illegal workers, but doesn’t go near our President’s properties which employ the same. 

Turning the page, I read where the Administration is attempting to rape the preservation of animals that are nearly extinct and Trump has become our climate’s Public Enemy No. 1. 

As I wander I wonder. My hope is that the enablers of this great national nightmare will come to their senses. 

Yes, I am an American, and proud of it, but not to the point of selling my soul and dancing cheek to cheek with that devil in a non-too-clever disguise. 

I’m an American. Enough said.