We’re the United States of America

We’re the United States of America.

We’re not the United States of Europe.

Or the United States of Scandinavia.

Or the United States of Australia.  Or Asia.  Or India…

We are unique.  We were founded on unique principles and by a unique brand of people.  Our ancestors may come from other parts of the world, but we’re different, and we used to be proud of that difference.

We’re apparently not so proud of it any more.

The people who came to these shores did so because they chafed under the restrictions of their homelands.  They weren’t content with their lives there, they came for the freedom to make their own choices, to worship according to their own consciences, to make their own way.  This country grew because the explorers, the adventurers, the “rugged individualists” pushed outward, further west, often at great individual peril.

This was not the attitude that prevailed in the more established Europe, or anywhere else in the world.  The openness of this continent drew those eager to test themselves, to stand on their own two feet, succeed or fail on their own merits, which couldn’t happen where they were living, where the limitations of your parentage and social status dictated your station in life.

I could go on, but suffice it to say that The United States of America became a world power based on that individual initiative, the risk taking, and voluntarily coming together for a common cause.  Did we divide into social classes?  Of course – but unlike in Europe, your birth into one level didn’t preclude you “rising” into another, improving your lot in life, based on your own hard work. Individual success meant that others could succeed; anyone could succeed, regardless of birth or origin, if they were willing to put themselves out there and take the risk, put in the work.  Those values are enshrined in our founding, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.  Those values put men on the moon, and were (and are) a beacon to the rest of the world.

The United States of America is the epitome, the ultimate, “rags to riches” story.

We’re not like any other place in the world.

Why are we turning our backs on that, denying our uniqueness, and trying to become what our forebears fled?