Why am I an American?

I remember as a child sitting on my fathers shoulders, watching the 4^th of July parade moving along its procession. Decadent soldiers marched in formation while gaudy brass instruments played the star spangled banner. The smell of sweet BBQ swelled the senses in an intoxicating aroma. In that moment the illusion was perfect. America was beautiful.

Today my father has gone; run off across the border to Mexico to marry another woman. My youthful days are over, supplanted by what the world would call a less naïve reality. I am no longer so easily enveloped in the American myth. Yet, within me lies a yearning for those once accepted truths. It is this conflict between the nation we believe and the nation we see that defines us as American.

We are a nation bent on the internal struggle of love and hate. We love the freedom, but hate the consequences that freedom affords. We glorify the free market, free expression, and free will and at the same time detest the commercialism, pornography, and indecency that plagues are society. Though we maintain a certain pride in our nation, we are less able to consider ourselves America the great.

Our students are regarded among the lowest ranked in the world; so low that we no longer allow them to be measured against the rest of the world. We have considered ourselves the police man and defender of democracy in the world, while at the same time being the single largest supplier of arms in the world with most of our weapons being sold to underdeveloped nations. The world continues to hate us while they consume our commercial offerings like a drug that shames them.

The true illusion of America is how easily it is despised, yet beneath its inconsistencies and imperfection, doe there lie something noble; something we can believe in? Is there some truth to those mythic tales of valor and bravery? Can America be great? These are the questions I struggle against as I move to that next level of understanding and acceptance. It is there that I hope to find the answer to primary question: Why am I an American?