Duuude! What makes this land so great? What makes it any greater than Rome or the British empire or Kubla Khan's or the Russians' or the Geeks'?
You mean the Greeks, I suppose. What makes us greater, better, more virtuous than any of your examples - including even England post Magna Carta - is the centrality of freedom in America, the soaring premise of a nation (as Lincoln said at Gettysburg) "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
What the Founders and the subsequent Defenders accomplished makes me tear up and rain, Dude. "Mine eyes have seen the glory" and "let us die to make men free." "Huddled masses" streaming to our shores and across our borders "to breathe free." Magnificent words describing the noblest concept ever realized on this tiny planet in the vast cosmic sea.
It's like, you know, a free country. But hey, man, that's heavy stuff. Take a break.
Dude. Mark this well: If one is not actively for freedom, not a vigorous proponent and defender of it, one is likely to lose that freedom - if not in a single stroke by conquest, then through the salami technique slice by slice. So I am not going to take a break until the game is lost and they carry me off the field toes-up. And you shouldn't either.
Who me?
Yes, you. One day you too may grow up in mind as well as in body. Until then - well, you might want to think on Stephen Decatur's toast: "To my country, may she always be right. But right or wrong, my country."
Uncle, in school they taught me about moral equivalence. To say my country "right or wrong" sounds to me like over-the-top unquestioning favoritism for the US of A. What has it ever done for me?
It and the Founders and Defenders provided the liberty and independence making America the envy of the world - and enabling you to become who you are.
Listen, man. Time for me to split. Here's five. Hope that suit works for you in your parade. You actually going to do anything besides, you know, march?
Yes, I have been asked to lead the parade and to sing the fourth verse of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" - the verse containing the words, Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light.
You go, Uncle. Oh - and have a nice day.