essay on why i love america

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I Love America. That’s Why I Have to Tell the Truth About It

Love it or leave it. Have you heard someone say this? Or have you said it? Anyone who has heard these five words knows what it means, because it almost always refers to America. Anyone who has heard this sentence knows it is a loaded gun, pointed at them.

As for those who say this sentence, do you mean it with gentleness, with empathy, with sarcasm, with satire, with any kind of humor that is not ill humored? Or is the sentence always said with very clear menace?

I ask out of genuine curiosity, because I have never said this sentence myself, in reference to any country or place. I have never said “love it or leave it” to my son, and I hope I never will, because that is not the kind of love I want to feel, for him or for my country, whichever country that might be.

The country in which I am writing these words is France, which is not my country but which colonized Vietnam, where I was born, for two-thirds of a century. French rule ended only 17 years before my birth. My parents and their parents never knew anything but French colonialism. Perhaps because of this history, part of me loves France, a love that is due, in some measure, to having been mentally colonized by France.

Aware of my colonization, I do not love France the way many Americans love France, the ones who dream of the Eiffel Tower, of sipping coffee at Les Deux Magots, of eating a fine meal in Provence. This is a romantic love, set to accordion music or Édith Piaf, which I feel only fleetingly. I cannot help but see colonialism’s legacies, visible throughout Paris if one wishes to see them: the people of African and Arab origins who are here because France was there in their countries of birth. Romanticizing their existence, oftentimes at the margins of French society, would be difficult, which is why Americans rarely talk about them as part of the fantasy of Paris.

The fantasy is tempting, especially because of my Vietnamese history. Most of the French of Vietnamese origins I know are content, even if they are aware of their colonized history. Why wouldn’t they be? A Moroccan friend in Paris points to the skin I share with these French of Vietnamese ancestry and says, “You are white here.” But I am not white in America, or not yet. I was made in America but born in Vietnam, and my origins are inseparable from three wars: the one the Vietnamese fought against the French; the one the Vietnamese fought against each other; and the one the U.S. fought in Vietnam.

Many Americans consider the war to be a noble, if possibly flawed, example of American good intentions. And while there is some truth to that, it was also simply a continuation of French colonization, a war that was racist and imperialist at its roots and in its practices. As such, this war was just one manifestation of a centuries-long expansion of the American empire that began from its own colonial birth and ran through the frontier, the American West, Mexico, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and now the Middle East.

One war might be a mistake. A long series of wars is a pattern. Indians were the original terrorists in the American imagination. The genocide committed against them by white settlers is Thanksgiving’s ugly side, not quite remembered but not really forgotten, even in France, where images of a half-naked Native American in a feathered headdress can also be found. Centuries later, the latent memory of genocide — or the celebration of conquest — would surface when American GIs called hostile Vietnamese territory “Indian country.” Now Muslims are the new gooks while terrorists are the new communists, since communists are no longer very threatening and every society needs an Other to define its boundaries and funnel its fears.

Many Americans do not like to hear these things. An American veteran of the war, an enlisted man, wrote me in rage after reading an essay of mine on the scars that Vietnamese refugees carried. Americans had sacrificed themselves for my country, my family, me, he said. I should be grateful. When I wrote him back and said he was the only one hurt by his rage, he wrote back with an even angrier letter. Another American veteran, a former officer, now a dentist and doctor, read my novel The Sympathizer and sent me a letter more measured in tone but with a message just as blunt. You seem to love the communists so much, he said. Why don’t you go back to Vietnam? And take your son with you.

I was weary and did not write back to him. I should have. I would have pointed out that he must not have finished my novel, since the last quarter indicts communism’s failures in Vietnam. Perhaps he never made it past being offended by the first quarter of the novel, which condemns America’s war in Vietnam. Perhaps he never made it to the middle of the novel, by which point I was also satirizing the failures of the government under which I was born, the Republic of Vietnam, the south.

I made such criticisms not because I hated all the countries that I have known but because I love them. My love for my countries is difficult because their histories, like those of all countries, are complicated. Every country believes in its own best self and from these visions has built beautiful cultures, France included. And yet every country is also soiled in the blood of conquest and violence, Vietnam included. If we love our countries, we owe it to them not just to flatter them but to tell the truth about them in all their beauty and their brutality, America included.

If I had written that letter, I would have asked this dentist and doctor why he had to threaten my son, who was born in America. His citizenship is natural, which is as good as the citizenship of the dentist, the doctor and the veteran. And yet even my son is told to love it or leave it. Is such a telling American? Yes. And no. “Love it or leave it” is completely American and yet un-American at the same time, just like me.

Unlike my son, I had to become naturalized. Did I love America at the time of my naturalization? It is hard to say, because I had never said “I love you” to anyone, my parents included, much less a country. But I still wanted to swear my oath of citizenship to America as an adolescent. At the same time, I wanted to keep my Vietnamese name. I had tried various American names on for size. All felt unnatural. Only the name my parents gave me felt natural, possibly because my father never ceased telling me, “You are 100% Vietnamese.”

By keeping my name, I could be made into an American but not forget that I was born in Vietnam. Paradoxically, I also believed that by keeping my name, I was making a commitment to America. Not the America of those who say “love it or leave it,” but to my America, to an America that I would force to say my name, rather than to an America that would force a name on me.

Naming my own son was then a challenge. I wanted an American name for him that expressed the complexities of our America. I chose Ellison, after the great writer Ralph Waldo Ellison, himself named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great philosopher. My son’s genealogy would be black and white, literary and philosophical, African American and American. This genealogy gestures at the greatness of America and the horror of it as well, the democracy as well as the slavery. Some Americans like to believe that the greatness has succeeded the horror, but to me, the greatness and the horror exist simultaneously, as they have from the very beginning of our American history and perhaps to its end. A name like Ellison compresses the beauty and the brutality of America into seven letters, a summation of despair and hope.

This is a heavy burden to lay on one’s son, although it is no heavier than the burden placed on me by my parents. My first name is that of the Vietnamese people, whose patriotic mythology says we have suffered for centuries to be independent and free. And yet today Vietnam, while being independent, is hardly free. I could never go back to Vietnam for good, because I could never be a writer there and say the things I say without being sent to prison.

So I choose the freedom of America, even at a time when “love it or leave it” is no longer just rhetorical. The current Administration is threatening even naturalized citizens with denaturalization and deportation. Perhaps it is not so far-fetched to imagine that one day someone like me, born in Vietnam, might be sent back to Vietnam, despite having made more out of myself than many native-born Americans. If so, I would not take my son with me. Vietnam is not his country. America is his country, and perhaps he will know for it a love that will be less complicated and more intuitive than mine.

He will also — I hope — know a father’s love that is less complicated than mine. I never said “I love you” when I was growing up because my parents never said “I love you” to me. That does not mean they did not love me. They loved me so much that they worked themselves to exhaustion in their new America. I hardly ever got to see them. When I did, they were too tired to be joyful. Still, no matter how weary they were, they always made dinner, even if dinner was often just boiled organ meat. I grew up on intestine, tongue, tripe, liver, gizzard and heart. But I was never hungry.

The memory of that visceral love, expressed in sacrifice, is in the marrow of my bones. A word or a tone can make me feel the deepness of that love, as happened to me when I overheard a conversation one day in my neighborhood drugstore in Los Angeles. The man next to me was Asian, not handsome, plainly dressed. He spoke southern Vietnamese on his cell phone. “Con oi, Ba day. Con an com chua?” He looked a little rough, perhaps working class. But when he spoke to his child in Vietnamese, his voice was very tender. What he said cannot be translated. It can only be felt.

Literally, he said, “Hello, child. This is your father. Have you eaten rice yet?” That means nothing in English, but in Vietnamese it means everything. “Con oi, Ba day. Con an com chua?” This is how hosts greet guests who come to the home, by asking them if they have eaten. This was how parents, who would never say “I love you,” told their children they loved them. I grew up with these customs, these emotions, these intimacies, and when I heard this man say this to his child, I almost cried. This is how I know that I am still Vietnamese, because my history is in my blood and my culture is my umbilical cord. Even if my Vietnamese is imperfect, which it is, I am still connected to Vietnam and to Vietnamese refugees worldwide.

And yet, when I was growing up, some Vietnamese Americans would tell me I was not really Vietnamese because I did not speak perfect Vietnamese. Such a statement is a cousin of “love it or leave it.” But there should be many ways of being Vietnamese, just as there are many ways of being French, many ways of being American. For me, as long as I feel Vietnamese, as long as Vietnamese things move me, I am still Vietnamese. That is how I feel the love of country for Vietnam, which is one of my countries, and that is how I feel my Vietnamese self.

In claiming that defiant Vietnamese self, one that disregards anyone else’s definition, I claim my American self too. Against all those who say “love it or leave it,” who offer only one way to be American, I insist on the America that allows me to be Vietnamese and is enriched by the love of others. So it is that every day I ask my son if he has eaten yet and every day I tell my son I love him. This is how love of country and love of family do not differ. I want to create a family where I will never say “love it or leave it” to my son, just as I want a country that will never say the same to anyone.

Most Americans will not feel what I feel when they hear the Vietnamese language, but they feel the love of country in their own ways. Perhaps they feel that deep, emotional love when they see the flag or hear the national anthem. I admit that those symbols mean little to me, because they divide as much as unify. Too many people, from the highest office in the land down, have used those symbols to essentially tell all Americans to love it or leave it.

Being immune to the flag and the anthem does not make me less American than those who love those symbols. Is it not more important that I love the substance behind those symbols rather than the symbols themselves? The principles. Democracy, equality, justice, hope, peace and especially freedom, the freedom to write and to think whatever I want, even if my freedoms and the beauty of those principles have all been nurtured by the blood of genocide, slavery, conquest, colonization, imperial war, forever war. All of that is America, our beautiful and brutal America.

I did not understand the contradiction that was our America during my youth in San Jose, Calif., in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then I only wanted to be American in the simplest way possible, partly in resistance against my father’s demand that I be 100% Vietnamese. My father felt that deep love for his country because he had lost it when we fled Vietnam as refugees in 1975. If my parents held on to their Vietnamese identity and culture fiercely, it was only because they wanted their country back, a sentiment that many Americans would surely understand.

Then the U.S. re-established relations with Vietnam in 1994, and my parents took the first opportunity to go home. They went twice, without me, to visit a country that was just emerging from postwar poverty and desperation. Whatever they saw in their homeland, it affected my father deeply. After the second trip, my parents never again returned to Vietnam. Instead, over the next Thanksgiving dinner, my father said, “We’re Americans now.”

At last, my father had claimed America. I should have been elated, and part of me was as we sat before our exotic meal of turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, which my brother had bought from a supermarket because no one in my family knew how to cook these specialties that we ate only once a year. But if I also felt uneasy, it was because I could not help but wonder: Which America was it?

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — American Values — Why I Love America: A Land of Opportunity and Freedom

Why I Love America: a Land of Opportunity and Freedom

• Categories: American Identity American Values

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Words: 789 |

Published: Sep 7, 2023

Words: 789 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Freedom and democracy, cultural diversity, economic opportunity, global leadership and philanthropy, resilience and progress, conclusion: a nation to cherish.

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Why i love america.

• Word Count: 273
• Approx Pages: 1
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            I love America because of the freedom that we obtain. We can do what we please without being criticized by our decisions. We have the chioce of being what we want to be and how we become that person. America gives us the opportunity not to hide from the things that we believe in.              I love America for the rights that she gives us,especially the right to make decisions and be ourselves. We have more right than any other country and yet we do take things for granted, but then there are some of us that realize what our country stands for. Our country stands for God.              I love America for all the beauty that she beholds. We get to see the beauty of America everyday and are able to cherish it. There are so many places in America that none of us have ever seen. One day we will get the privilege of knowing our country and to see how beautiful it actually is.              I love America because the people in America is what has made her so beautiful. There are people who have done so much to make her a free country and they have succeded. America has been through many hardships but has always managed to come out shining.              I love America because of how strong she is. She has stood through terrorists trying to tear her down. She has given everyone in this country a resaon to love her. I believe that even though there are things wrong with America, that if we work together we could come out on top in every aspect.             

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I Love America. That’s Why I Have to Tell the Truth About It

Love it or leave it. Have you heard someone say this? Or have you said it? Anyone who has heard these five words knows what it means, because it almost always refers to America. Anyone who has heard this sentence knows it is a loaded gun, pointed at them.

As for those who say this sentence, do you mean it with gentleness, with empathy, with sarcasm, with satire, with any kind of humor that is not ill humored? Or is the sentence always said with very clear menace?

I ask out of genuine curiosity, because I have never said this sentence myself, in reference to any country or place. I have never said “love it or leave it” to my son, and I hope I never will, because that is not the kind of love I want to feel, for him or for my country, whichever country that might be.

The country in which I am writing these words is France, which is not my country but which colonized Vietnam, where I was born, for two-thirds of a century. French rule ended only 17 years before my birth. My parents and their parents never knew anything but French colonialism. Perhaps because of this history, part of me loves France, a love that is due, in some measure, to having been mentally colonized by France.

Aware of my colonization, I do not love France the way many Americans love France, the ones who dream of the Eiffel Tower, of sipping coffee at Les Deux Magots, of eating a fine meal in Provence. This is a romantic love, set to accordion music or Édith Piaf, which I feel only fleetingly. I cannot help but see colonialism’s legacies, visible throughout Paris if one wishes to see them: the people of African and Arab origins who are here because France was there in their countries of birth. Romanticizing their existence, oftentimes at the margins of French society, would be difficult, which is why Americans rarely talk about them as part of the fantasy of Paris.

The fantasy is tempting, especially because of my Vietnamese history. Most of the French of Vietnamese origins I know are content, even if they are aware of their colonized history. Why wouldn’t they be? A Moroccan friend in Paris points to the skin I share with these French of Vietnamese ancestry and says, “You are white here.” But I am not white in America, or not yet. I was made in America but born in Vietnam, and my origins are inseparable from three wars: the one the Vietnamese fought against the French; the one the Vietnamese fought against each other; and the one the U.S. fought in Vietnam.

Many Americans consider the war to be a noble, if possibly flawed, example of American good intentions. And while there is some truth to that, it was also simply a continuation of French colonization, a war that was racist and imperialist at its roots and in its practices. As such, this war was just one manifestation of a centuries-long expansion of the American empire that began from its own colonial birth and ran through the frontier, the American West, Mexico, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and now the Middle East.

One war might be a mistake. A long series of wars is a pattern. Indians were the original terrorists in the American imagination. The genocide committed against them by white settlers is Thanksgiving’s ugly side, not quite remembered but not really forgotten, even in France, where images of a half-naked Native American in a feathered headdress can also be found. Centuries later, the latent memory of genocide — or the celebration of conquest — would surface when American GIs called hostile Vietnamese territory “Indian country.” Now Muslims are the new gooks while terrorists are the new communists, since communists are no longer very threatening and every society needs an Other to define its boundaries and funnel its fears.

Many Americans do not like to hear these things. An American veteran of the war, an enlisted man, wrote me in rage after reading an essay of mine on the scars that Vietnamese refugees carried. Americans had sacrificed themselves for my country, my family, me, he said. I should be grateful. When I wrote him back and said he was the only one hurt by his rage, he wrote back with an even angrier letter. Another American veteran, a former officer, now a dentist and doctor, read my novel The Sympathizer and sent me a letter more measured in tone but with a message just as blunt. You seem to love the communists so much, he said. Why don’t you go back to Vietnam? And take your son with you.

I was weary and did not write back to him. I should have. I would have pointed out that he must not have finished my novel, since the last quarter indicts communism’s failures in Vietnam. Perhaps he never made it past being offended by the first quarter of the novel, which condemns America’s war in Vietnam. Perhaps he never made it to the middle of the novel, by which point I was also satirizing the failures of the government under which I was born, the Republic of Vietnam, the south.

I made such criticisms not because I hated all the countries that I have known but because I love them. My love for my countries is difficult because their histories, like those of all countries, are complicated. Every country believes in its own best self and from these visions has built beautiful cultures, France included. And yet every country is also soiled in the blood of conquest and violence, Vietnam included. If we love our countries, we owe it to them not just to flatter them but to tell the truth about them in all their beauty and their brutality, America included.

If I had written that letter, I would have asked this dentist and doctor why he had to threaten my son, who was born in America. His citizenship is natural, which is as good as the citizenship of the dentist, the doctor and the veteran. And yet even my son is told to love it or leave it. Is such a telling American? Yes. And no. “Love it or leave it” is completely American and yet un-American at the same time, just like me.

Unlike my son, I had to become naturalized. Did I love America at the time of my naturalization? It is hard to say, because I had never said “I love you” to anyone, my parents included, much less a country. But I still wanted to swear my oath of citizenship to America as an adolescent. At the same time, I wanted to keep my Vietnamese name. I had tried various American names on for size. All felt unnatural. Only the name my parents gave me felt natural, possibly because my father never ceased telling me, “You are 100% Vietnamese.”

By keeping my name, I could be made into an American but not forget that I was born in Vietnam. Paradoxically, I also believed that by keeping my name, I was making a commitment to America. Not the America of those who say “love it or leave it,” but to my America, to an America that I would force to say my name, rather than to an America that would force a name on me.

Naming my own son was then a challenge. I wanted an American name for him that expressed the complexities of our America. I chose Ellison, after the great writer Ralph Waldo Ellison, himself named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great philosopher. My son’s genealogy would be black and white, literary and philosophical, African American and American. This genealogy gestures at the greatness of America and the horror of it as well, the democracy as well as the slavery. Some Americans like to believe that the greatness has succeeded the horror, but to me, the greatness and the horror exist simultaneously, as they have from the very beginning of our American history and perhaps to its end. A name like Ellison compresses the beauty and the brutality of America into seven letters, a summation of despair and hope.

This is a heavy burden to lay on one’s son, although it is no heavier than the burden placed on me by my parents. My first name is that of the Vietnamese people, whose patriotic mythology says we have suffered for centuries to be independent and free. And yet today Vietnam, while being independent, is hardly free. I could never go back to Vietnam for good, because I could never be a writer there and say the things I say without being sent to prison.

So I choose the freedom of America, even at a time when “love it or leave it” is no longer just rhetorical. The current Administration is threatening even naturalized citizens with denaturalization and deportation. Perhaps it is not so far-fetched to imagine that one day someone like me, born in Vietnam, might be sent back to Vietnam, despite having made more out of myself than many native-born Americans. If so, I would not take my son with me. Vietnam is not his country. America is his country, and perhaps he will know for it a love that will be less complicated and more intuitive than mine.

He will also — I hope — know a father’s love that is less complicated than mine. I never said “I love you” when I was growing up because my parents never said “I love you” to me. That does not mean they did not love me. They loved me so much that they worked themselves to exhaustion in their new America. I hardly ever got to see them. When I did, they were too tired to be joyful. Still, no matter how weary they were, they always made dinner, even if dinner was often just boiled organ meat. I grew up on intestine, tongue, tripe, liver, gizzard and heart. But I was never hungry.

The memory of that visceral love, expressed in sacrifice, is in the marrow of my bones. A word or a tone can make me feel the deepness of that love, as happened to me when I overheard a conversation one day in my neighborhood drugstore in Los Angeles. The man next to me was Asian, not handsome, plainly dressed. He spoke southern Vietnamese on his cell phone. “Con oi, Ba day. Con an com chua?” He looked a little rough, perhaps working class. But when he spoke to his child in Vietnamese, his voice was very tender. What he said cannot be translated. It can only be felt.

Literally, he said, “Hello, child. This is your father. Have you eaten rice yet?” That means nothing in English, but in Vietnamese it means everything. “Con oi, Ba day. Con an com chua?” This is how hosts greet guests who come to the home, by asking them if they have eaten. This was how parents, who would never say “I love you,” told their children they loved them. I grew up with these customs, these emotions, these intimacies, and when I heard this man say this to his child, I almost cried. This is how I know that I am still Vietnamese, because my history is in my blood and my culture is my umbilical cord. Even if my Vietnamese is imperfect, which it is, I am still connected to Vietnam and to Vietnamese refugees worldwide.

And yet, when I was growing up, some Vietnamese Americans would tell me I was not really Vietnamese because I did not speak perfect Vietnamese. Such a statement is a cousin of “love it or leave it.” But there should be many ways of being Vietnamese, just as there are many ways of being French, many ways of being American. For me, as long as I feel Vietnamese, as long as Vietnamese things move me, I am still Vietnamese. That is how I feel the love of country for Vietnam, which is one of my countries, and that is how I feel my Vietnamese self.

In claiming that defiant Vietnamese self, one that disregards anyone else’s definition, I claim my American self too. Against all those who say “love it or leave it,” who offer only one way to be American, I insist on the America that allows me to be Vietnamese and is enriched by the love of others. So it is that every day I ask my son if he has eaten yet and every day I tell my son I love him. This is how love of country and love of family do not differ. I want to create a family where I will never say “love it or leave it” to my son, just as I want a country that will never say the same to anyone.

Most Americans will not feel what I feel when they hear the Vietnamese language, but they feel the love of country in their own ways. Perhaps they feel that deep, emotional love when they see the flag or hear the national anthem. I admit that those symbols mean little to me, because they divide as much as unify. Too many people, from the highest office in the land down, have used those symbols to essentially tell all Americans to love it or leave it.

Being immune to the flag and the anthem does not make me less American than those who love those symbols. Is it not more important that I love the substance behind those symbols rather than the symbols themselves? The principles. Democracy, equality, justice, hope, peace and especially freedom, the freedom to write and to think whatever I want, even if my freedoms and the beauty of those principles have all been nurtured by the blood of genocide, slavery, conquest, colonization, imperial war, forever war. All of that is America, our beautiful and brutal America.

I did not understand the contradiction that was our America during my youth in San Jose, Calif., in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then I only wanted to be American in the simplest way possible, partly in resistance against my father’s demand that I be 100% Vietnamese. My father felt that deep love for his country because he had lost it when we fled Vietnam as refugees in 1975. If my parents held on to their Vietnamese identity and culture fiercely, it was only because they wanted their country back, a sentiment that many Americans would surely understand.

Then the U.S. re-established relations with Vietnam in 1994, and my parents took the first opportunity to go home. They went twice, without me, to visit a country that was just emerging from postwar poverty and desperation. Whatever they saw in their homeland, it affected my father deeply. After the second trip, my parents never again returned to Vietnam. Instead, over the next Thanksgiving dinner, my father said, “We’re Americans now.”

At last, my father had claimed America. I should have been elated, and part of me was as we sat before our exotic meal of turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, which my brother had bought from a supermarket because no one in my family knew how to cook these specialties that we ate only once a year. But if I also felt uneasy, it was because I could not help but wonder: Which America was it?

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10 Reasons I Love America

I have visited many other countries and always been impressed with the cultures, beauty and people of other nations in the world. I appreciate the readers of this blog from around the world, and I have even been in another country as they celebrated their founding day. Today is our special day in the United States, as we celebrate our country’s founding.

I posted previously why I love my country, but I’m thinking the list might be endless.

In honor of my great nation, here are 10 reasons I love America:

Freedom – I have dear friends who fight to defend our freedom. This freedom gives me the right to do what I do without fear of government intervention.

Adventure – I love a capitalistic and entrepreneurial system of government and I’ve experienced both the ups and downs of our system.

Diversity – Every nation, race and color is represented here. We are integrated with diversity, which has made our country stronger.

Risk – This country was founded with risk and risk-takers are still applauded today. I would struggle personally in any other environment.

Determination – Throughout our history, Americans have had a desire to succeed at any cost.

Patriotism – We love our country. Period.

Volunteerism – When there is a need in the world, Americans will be among the first to assist. We may argue about our politics, but when there is trouble around, Americans come together and you want Americans nearby.

Beauty – I’ve traveled a great deal in our country. I can’t land on a “most beautiful”. Mountains, deserts, beaches, lakes, rivers, plains, and swampland. We have it all.

Opportunity – It’s still true. If you work hard enough, persevere through failures and setbacks, you can still achieve success in the United States.

Economy – Yes, I said it…and I mean it. Our economy has seen better (and worse) days. We still have much to be thankful for with our economy. Poor here is still rich compared to most of the world.

God bless the United States of America! Happy Fourth of July!

Why do you love your country?

You can read my previous posts:

10 Reasons I Love the U.S.A. (A more humorous look.) The Real 10 Reasons I Love the U.S.A

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I love the culture and the freedom your country has I was in New York City this June and I must say I've never been to a city that's so diverse and yet is that united. I'm from South Africa and although we are a cosmopolitan country (and city in my hometown of Johannesburg) we are not as together as New York is.

"God Bless America"

I loveeeeeeeeee USA i want to come there plez take me America ??

I love United States of America, I came there this year and I was very impressed. The freedom, happy and helpful people impressed me. I feel really bad that I can't live in United States but I hope one day I'll get my green card. USA is the greatest nation in the world, I've never ever in my life felt the freedom like in United States. Freedom to express myself, freedom to speech, it's a great nation. I really miss USA and I hope next year I'll come there back.

I am a fresh emigrant in America (probably, my English is not that good as yours and your readers). I came here from Europe 2 years ago following an invitation from the US government as a result of a selection made possible by an emigration bill established in 1990 (under the president George H. W. Bush). And I can tell you the American Dream still exists and is still at your hand. Most of the Americans are not happy with their country and that's because most of them didn't travel outside of the US or didn't pay attention to what they really have. From this perspective, I am more American then most of them. I am happy with this country and I want to thank you and to your ancestors for what you've done in order to have such a great country. There is an inspirational joke that helped me a lot. When I came here, after few days, I was amazed by this places and most of the points that author enumerated. And this is me going straight to the first person that I see on the street in the middle of the day and I said: – Well, Mr. American, I want to thank you for this beautiful country, for this wonderful places… – Wa, Wa, Wa, Wait a minute – the man said. – What is it? – I am not American. – But… – I am jamaican. – All right – I said – than sorry, I'm gonna look for an American… And I go to the next person: – Thank you, madam! Thank you! Thank you for this country, for the freedom, for this free American society… – Wha, Wha, Wha, What you talking about? the lady said. – Well, I want to than you as an American… – But I am not American – the lady replied. – Than what are you? – Well, I am mexican. – Well, than sorry, I will look for an American… … than I go to another person … – I am not American! I am puerto-rican. … next person … – I am not American! … next person … – I am not American! … than I became frustrated … – Where are the Americans? Than the man in front of me is looking at this watch: – At this hour? At work!

… from that point, my friends, I understood that if you want to really enjoy this country, you have to WORK. Work hard, make history, make yourself and others happy.

God Bless USA

sorry for my English! I am here because I love US, because I find my style of life and it make me happy. Thank you so very much.

Yea, because NO other country has freedom.

I am aware that I am about 4 years late but does America really have freedom?

God bless the USA. I am a fourteen year old boy, and I know that we are a country of economic prosperity, freedom, beautiful surroundings, typically amazing people, and an amazing military. The gun issues might be bad but if you look at the pre-constitutional age, (1760-1783), our founding fathers did everything in their power to let us own guns. You also need to consider that our military is by far the best, but we are not the barbaric people as to take negative action and bomb a major part of another nation, so we should stop complaining, because we are at least Americans, and we should all be proud.

This is absolutely ridicolous. Did you ever realize that there is no greatest nation ever? What’s so great about the US? Nothing! You’re just a bunch of morons with the one of the worst educational system. Btw life in Germany or anywhere in Europe is way better.

And you so make me want to visit. Your kindness is inviting.

That explains why America has the greatest secondary education system in the world.

I love freedom . Though I beleive if were not more active , we could loose it ! Liberty is gained by haveing fundamental truth of our God . Then maintained by our moral conduct . In all ventures of life . Brothers and Sisters we have one life to live . Let us do a little sacrificeing as our four fathers did for us. To insure our childrens future . MAKEING MORALLY GOOD DECISSIONS IS A MUST . RAISE THEM RESPONSIBLY AND NO RIGHT CAN BE TAKEN !

I Love America! http://youtu.be/6mbYUo8KL4U

Do you find ignorance as blissful as people say ?

I love america because I get freedom, space and respect as individual. This country is bound to lead the world until eternity.

God bless the USA!

i love America very much …………. i wish i come America and see it minimum just one time and feel the country of my dreams………………

I love America. I am an Indian well educated and I am in states since last three years. This country has given me everything opportunity, success, confidence, good life style,freedom to express myself, positive self image and above all love. I am blessed to be in this part of the world.I wish and pray from the bottom of my heart god bless America.

Thank you! God bless America.

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I love the USA, too, althoug I am from Germany (but I wish I could live in the US). What I love most about America is that it is one of the last countries in the world, where capitalism and your own success is still very important, whereas in Germany, we have to pay very high taxes so that people who are not willing to work, can get money – MY MONEY! This is also the reason why I am angry on the demonstrations against Wall Street in the last weeks. I hope they won't destroy the reason why I love America more than anything – because it is up to you, what you make of your life!

Thank you so much!

Our's is not perfect, but it is what we make of it! If we decide to make it cheap and worthless, we will elect that kind of leadership, then see what it is, and elect another: the election process has as many problems as it does anything else, but it still allows us the opportunity to choose another leader, or policy, law, etc. I like our country! I am grateful for it and the people who have paid such a high price for it't freedoms!

Good list (the older 10 reasons I love the USA is good also). We lived in West Africa for 6 years and have traveled well. Perspective is something more Americans could benefit from. We still thank God for lines on the roads, working traffic lights and a system of justice. When the electricity goes off, we smile and feel oddly comfortable. Water from the tap, choices in food to eat, a hot shower almost all the time. All treasures. In the country we lived in the nationals would always give thanks for the breath and life of the day. Perspective! Give thanks in all things.

Good perspective. I agree. We take a lot for granted.

How about checks and balances? I love that we can have multiple political parties to keep one from becoming too powerful or dictatorial. If you don't agree with an administration, we have the freedom to take part in in an attempt to unseat that party and replace it with one who shares your views and passion.

Yes, that does help our government and builds accountability.

I love america for the same reasons you do….only one I'd add is: Democracy – problematic for sure, but far better than the alternatives. Hope – people still flood our shores and boarders seeking opportunity, which gives me hope.

Good word. Wish I had added that one!

Happy Independence Day to all my american friends! We, Canadians celebrated Canada Day on Friday, 144th year sin Confederation was established by ou founders. May God keep our land glorious and free…

Thanks! I love your country too!

I have to go to your #1 Ron. I love America because of its freedom. I realize all is not perfect but there is no better place to live. I have often said that those who were complaining about so-and-so being elected president and they would move to another country…Go! And then see if they have the freedom to speak out against the president/leader as they do here. Happy 4th Ron.

Yes, isn't it great to be free! Believers should especially appreciate that one.

If I disagree with one of our countries leaders, I won’t die as a result! I can not only disagree, I can fire that leader in the next election!

I can choose my own leaders and policies through an election process; I am not left to the childish redundincies of tyrants.

I have the capacity and right to travel from one state to another without prohibition.

I am so very grateful for these, and I don’t take them for granted, but thank God for them and the people who paid for them.

That's a great point.

I visited Saudi arabia once, that trip taught the importance of freedom. Saudi king is an absolute tyrant. i never felt so lucky being american.

Hey Ron, I love America because we have the NY Giants! Have a GREAT July 4th celebration. Blessings, Dave PS: Okay a more serious answer… Because we live among the greatest generation. Soon they will be gone. Will our generation be known as the greatest or the one that started the decline of what we hold so dear? DMB

Ha! The Giants! I'll take that. Love your generational take!

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NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

David Folkenflik

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument. Uri Berliner hide caption

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument.

NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had "lost America's trust" by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.

Berliner's five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.

Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner's essay for the online news site The Free Press . It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network. Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year. Maher took the job at NPR last month — her first at a news organization .

In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR's journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," she said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

The network noted that "the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions."

In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month. Stephen Voss/Stephen Voss hide caption

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month.

He said that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders and to Maher's predecessor as chief executive before publishing his essay.

Berliner has singled out coverage of several issues dominating the 2020s for criticism, including trans rights, the Israel-Hamas war and COVID. Berliner says he sees the same problems at other news organizations, but argues NPR, as a mission-driven institution, has a greater obligation to fairness.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

A "final warning"

The circumstances surrounding the interview were singular.

Berliner provided me with a copy of the formal rebuke to review. NPR did not confirm or comment upon his suspension for this article.

In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.

The Free Press is a site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal. In addition to his essay, Berliner appeared in an episode of its podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.

A few hours after the essay appeared online, NPR chief business editor Pallavi Gogoi reminded Berliner of the requirement that he secure approval before appearing in outside press, according to a copy of the note provided by Berliner.

In its formal rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to The New York Times , which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. Berliner says he did not seek approval before talking with the Times .

NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think."

Berliner is a member of NPR's business desk, as am I, and he has helped to edit many of my stories. He had no involvement in the preparation of this article and did not see it before it was posted publicly.

In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world."

Feelings of anger and betrayal inside the newsroom

His essay and subsequent public remarks stirred deep anger and dismay within NPR. Colleagues contend Berliner cherry-picked examples to fit his arguments and challenge the accuracy of his accounts. They also note he did not seek comment from the journalists involved in the work he cited.

Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.

"The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway."

Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh--ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Berliner rejected that critique, saying nothing in his essay or subsequent remarks betrayed private observations or arguments about coverage.

Other newsrooms are also grappling with questions over news judgment and confidentiality. On Monday, New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Kahn announced to his staff that the newspaper's inquiry into who leaked internal dissent over a planned episode of its podcast The Daily to another news outlet proved inconclusive. The episode was to focus on a December report on the use of sexual assault as part of the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Audio staffers aired doubts over how well the reporting stood up to scrutiny.

"We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule," Kahn wrote to Times staffers.

At NPR, some of Berliner's colleagues have weighed in online against his claim that the network has focused on diversifying its workforce without a concomitant commitment to diversity of viewpoint. Recently retired Chief Executive John Lansing has referred to this pursuit of diversity within NPR's workforce as its " North Star ," a moral imperative and chief business strategy.

In his essay, Berliner tagged the strategy as a failure, citing the drop in NPR's broadcast audiences and its struggle to attract more Black and Latino listeners in particular.

"During most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding," Berliner writes. "In recent years, however, that has changed."

Berliner writes, "For NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and its business model."

NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024."

Some colleagues drafted a letter to Maher and NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, seeking greater clarity on NPR's standards for its coverage and the behavior of its journalists — clearly pointed at Berliner.

A plan for "healthy discussion"

On Friday, CEO Maher stood up for the network's mission and the journalism, taking issue with Berliner's critique, though never mentioning him by name. Among her chief issues, she said Berliner's essay offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are."

Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)

Late Monday afternoon, Chapin announced to the newsroom that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

"Among the questions we'll ask of ourselves each month: Did we capture the diversity of this country — racial, ethnic, religious, economic, political geographic, etc — in all of its complexity and in a way that helped listeners and readers recognize themselves and their communities?" Chapin wrote in the memo. "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand — even if just a bit better — those neighbors with whom they share little in common?"

Berliner said he welcomed the announcement but would withhold judgment until those meetings played out.

In a text for this story, Chapin said such sessions had been discussed since Lansing unified the news and programming divisions under her acting leadership last year.

"Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it," Chapin said. "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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Guest Essay

The New Movie ‘Civil War’ Matters for Reasons Different Than You Think

By Stephen Marche

Mr. Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

“Not one man in America wanted the Civil War, or expected or intended it,” Henry Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, declared at the beginning of the 20th century. What may seem inevitable to us in hindsight — the horrifying consequences of a country in political turmoil, given to violence and rived by slavery — came as a shock to many of the people living through it. Even those who anticipated it hardly seemed prepared for its violent magnitude. In this respect at least, the current division that afflicts the United States seems different from the Civil War. If there ever is a second civil war, it won’t be for lack of imagining it.

The most prominent example arrives this week in the form of an action blockbuster titled “Civil War.” The film, written and directed by Alex Garland, presents a scenario in which the government is at war with breakaway states and the president has been, in the eyes of part of the country, delegitimized. Some critics have denounced the project, arguing that releasing the film in this particular election year is downright dangerous. They assume that even just talking about a future national conflict could make it a reality, and that the film risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is wrong.

Not only does this criticism vastly overrate the power of the written word or the moving image, but it looks past the real forces sending the United States toward ever-deeper division: inequality; a hyperpartisan duopoly; and an antiquated and increasingly dysfunctional Constitution. Mere stories are not powerful enough to change those realities. But these stories can wake us up to the threats we are facing. The greatest political danger in America isn’t fascism, and it isn’t wokeness. It’s inertia. America needs a warning.

The reason for a surge in anxiety over a civil war is obvious. The Republican National Committee, now under the control of the presumptive nominee, has asked job candidates if they believe the 2020 election was stolen — an obvious litmus test. Extremism has migrated into mainstream politics, and certain fanciful fictions have migrated with it. In 1997, a group of Texas separatists were largely considered terrorist thugs and their movement, if it deserved that title, fizzled out after a weeklong standoff with the police. Just a few months ago, Texas took the federal government to court over control of the border. Armed militias have camped out along the border. That’s not a movie trailer. That’s happening.

But politicians, pundits and many voters seem not to be taking the risk of violence seriously enough. There is an ingrained assumption, resulting from the country’s recent history of global dominance coupled with a kind of organic national optimism, that in the United States everything ultimately works out. While right-wing journalists and fiction writers have been predicting a violent end to the Republic for generations — one of the foundational documents of neo-Nazism and white supremacy is “The Turner Diaries” from 1978, a novel that imagines an American revolution that leads to a race war — their writings seem more like wish fulfillment than like warnings.

When I attended prepper conventions as research for my book, I found their visions of a collapsed American Republic suspiciously attractive: It’s a world where everybody grows his own food, gathers with family by candlelight, defends his property against various unpredictable threats and relies on his wits. Their preferred scenario resembled, more than anything, a sort of postapocalyptic “Little House on the Prairie.”

We’ve seen more recent attempts to grapple with the possibility of domestic conflict in the form of sober-minded political analysis. Now the vision of a civil war has come to movie screens. We’re no longer just contemplating a political collapse, we’re seeing its consequences unfold in IMAX.

“Civil War” doesn’t dwell on the causes of the schism. Its central characters are journalists and the plot dramatizes the reality of the conflict they’re covering: the fear, violence and instability that a civil war would inflict on the lives of everyday Americans.

That’s a good thing. Early on when I was promoting my book, I remember an interviewer asking me whether a civil war wouldn’t be that terrible an option; whether it would help clear the air. The naïveté was shocking and, to me, sickening. America lost roughly 2 percent of its population in the Civil War. Contemplating the horrors of a civil war — whether as a thought experiment or in a theatrical blockbuster — helps counteract a reflexive sense of American exceptionalism. It can happen here. In fact, it already has.

One of the first people to predict the collapse of the Republic was none other than George Washington. “I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations,” he warned in his Farewell Address. “This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature.” This founder of the country devoted much of one of his most important addresses, at the apex of his popularity, to warning about the exact situation the United States today finds itself in: a hyper-partisanship that puts party over country and risks political collapse. Washington knew what civil war looked like.

For those Americans of the 1850s who couldn’t imagine a protracted, bloody civil war, the reason is simple enough: They couldn’t bear to. They refused to see the future they were part of building. The future came anyway.

The Americans of 2024 can easily imagine a civil war. The populace faces a different question and a different crisis: Can we forestall the future we have foreseen? No matter the likelihood of that future, the first step in its prevention is imagining how it might come to pass, and agreeing that it would be a catastrophe.

Stephen Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

Source photographs by Yasuhide Fumoto, Richard Nowitz and stilllifephotographer, via Getty Images.

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