Loving America

Flipping a cliché I’d say to love America is to know her. At the very minimum I take knowing and understanding America as a personal responsibility. There is a liberal Casey within me that wants all American borders to be open so everybody –including my love ones- could come here. Come here and live freely, speak without fear, pay a fear tax and achieve their full potential. But the conservative Casey mocks him and his simplistic wishes saying that America as a nation is limited and cannot accommodate everyone. Yet the wishful Casey reasserts that America as an idea, a phenomenon, or a state of understanding is limitless and expansive. So I aim to learn all that I can about what makes America successful. I plan to post my thoughts here so that the collective help of the Internet community could help me on my mission.

Let me start with this: All things being equal the simplest answer is the correct one (sorry, I don’t remember who should I credit for this quote). So here are some simple answers that fail to be conclusive. These may open the way for further discussion.

America’s financial strength is the answer. Not the actual money that might have been inherited from a previous generation but the confidence in being able to make as much money as one is willing to work for. This makes members of the community want to strive for more and in turn grows the whole economy which then provides for technological advancements that brings about more opportunity to make money and so on.

Financial capabilities cannot grow without law. American strength is based on respect for contract law and personal property. In America you can start a business in your garage or your kitchen knowing that you will be the sole beneficiary. If your hotdog stand develops into a national chain the king’s son or the prime minister’s cousin cannot muscle you out of the way and take over your business.

American success is rooted in the geographical location. America was able to start anew. By coming to America people were able to break away from all the limiting aspects of their original culture and start a fresh life. Colonists dismantled the native population's way of life and used the vast resources of this land to build a progressive culture without religious or social limitation to personal growth.

America is not for everyone. Those who work for a living going paycheck to paycheck and looking forward to a one-week vacation a year will never become a part of the elite. They might as well work and live anywhere else in the world as long as they spend their income within the American economy. Real Americans are a special bread of people who are always striving and never get tired. A real American will not quit working and producing after he/she becomes a millionaire. Wealth accumulation is just a byproduct, a way to keep score in this game. A real American is always focused on wining. You lose, I win, now lets find another game.

Well it’s 3:30 in the morning and I have to be on the way to work by 7 o’clock. So let me stop here and pick this up another day. Please feel free to e-mail me and tell me what you think. Thanks, Casey, An Iranian by birth and an American by choice.