A Love Letter to America
Three Point Essay | Admiring the rich glory of American culture in all its freedom and splendor
When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat.
George Carlin
When I was younger I thought everyone loved The United States.
I remember the first time I saw a poster with all the world flags. I asked my dad why the American one was the same size as all the others.
“Shouldn’t it be bigger than the rest and in the middle?”
To differing degrees, I suppose every person from every land feels something like this at some point in their life. Not only do you feel like the center of the universe, the place you live in does too.
People become conditioned to believe that their culture and country are the best; the most grand, the most sophisticated. Though I often read about criticisms of America, I’m no different. I love the U.S, and believe it is glorious.
But even accounting for my bias, I can say with confidence that while America’s short history is neither entirely good nor entirely evil, it's more inspiring than it is depressing; it's more heroic than it is tragic.
The United States of America was founded on admirable principles. It has often failed to live up to these principles. But every move towards living up to them, however small, makes us even more magnificent; because they are magnificent principles.
I. Freedom
No civilization has ever tasted freedom in the way that Americans do.
We're called ‘the great experiment’ for a reason. Our system is still relatively new. Until the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (not that long ago), chiefs, kings, monarchs, dictators, (insert absolute power title) ruled pretty much every single people. And time and time again, absolute power corrupted absolutely.
Until the founding fathers put forth the revolutionary ideas of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Until they declared that all men are created equal, and that one should be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Until they boldly claimed that the best government is that which governs least, has a separation of powers, has a periodic transfer of the people possessing the powers, and everyone has a vote for who is even in power. Until they rang the bells of freedom louder than anyone had ever heard.
Without proper perspective, you might fail to feel gratitude for these privileges. But all you have to do is look at the lives people lived in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, or Maoist China. Or look at the lives of people in North Korea, Eritrea, or Venezuela right now.
No one in these places has such privileges. No one in these places has such opportunities. No one in these places dares criticize those in power. No one in these places has fair trials. No one in these places has access to differing perspectives and information sources. No one in these places dares go against traditional beliefs. No one in these places dreams of such economic freedom and opportunity. Because no one in these places could or can even conceive of true freedom.
Thanks to our freedom, American culture has always celebrated and rewarded people with an adventurous spirit. The creatives, the dreamers, the pioneers, the inventors, the risk takers, the entrepreneurs.
As a consequence, implicit in American culture is an attitude of promoting and praising for wealth creation instead of condemning it.
When I was studying abroad, my friend Dennis from the Netherlands remarked on this dynamic. In passing, he said something like “Americans are damn good at finding ways to make money.” It’s just one example, but it was the first time hearing foreigners in a foreign land give me their perspectives on Americans. It was cool.
It echoes what Alexis de Tocqueville—a Frenchman who traveled through early America—wrote centuries earlier. He noted that "Americans are a commercial people” and that their "boldness of enterprise” will propel them to greatness.
It’s naive and dangerous to take this for granted. You may not even recognize these qualities as aspects of culture. But they are. In other places, making sacrifices to create wealth is not so celebrated. Taking risks is not so celebrated. Professing your unorthodox beliefs is not so celebrated. Being different is not so celebrated.
Naval Ravikant, originally an immigrant from India once remarked:
A caucasian and U.S. born friend once opined that I was lucky to have been born in a great culture (India), and that Americans have no culture. Not so. She has been living in it for so long that she is a fish in the American cultural ocean – it’s invisible. People leave the world in droves to come to America, for the culture. The culture of freedom, individual liberty, open-ness, and protection from the greatest slaughterer of mankind, government. I’ll take that any day over colorful clothing and spicy food.
II. America The Beautiful
Thanks to all this freedom and wealth from sea to shining sea, we’re the coolest.
“Cool never tries” Matthew McConaughey writes, “Cool just is”:
Elvis Presley. Clint Eastwood. Tom Brady. The Super Bowl. The NBA Finals. The World Series. The Grammys. The Oscars. New York. Los Angeles. Nashville. Chicago. Austin. Worcester. New Orleans. Miami. Boston. Las Vegas. Seattle. Phoenix. Denver. Salt Lake City. Tampa. San Francisco. Dallas. Atlanta. Houston. Philadelphia. San Diego. Small town U.S.A. The highway system and car culture. Prestigious (and party) Universities. Stanford. Harvard. Yale. Princeton. Duke. Alabama. University of Massachusetts. University of Connecticut. MIT. Ohio State. Baylor. Michigan. NYU. Columbia. Berkley. University of Texas. University of North Carolina. University of Kentucky. Legendary athletes. Larry Bird. Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant. LeBron James. Shaquille O’Neal. Stephen Curry. Babe Ruth. Derek Jeter. Patrick Mahomes. Peyton & Eli Manning. Aaron Rodgers. Serena Williams. Simone Biles. Alex Morgan. Hollywood stars. Sylvester Stallone. Tom Hanks. Morgan Freeman. Jennifer Lawrence. George Clooney. Scarlett Johannsson. Tom Cruise. Leonardo Dicaprio. Julia Roberts. Brad Pitt. Harrison Ford. Anne Hathaway. Denzel Washington. Matt Damon. Will Smith. Matthew McConaughey. Robert DeNiro. Al Pacino. Marilyn Monroe. Robert Downey Jr. Jennifer Aniston. Samuel L. Jackson. Sandra Bullock. Literary giants. Mark Twain. Ernest Hemingway. Dr. Seuss. Stephen King. Edgar Allen Poe. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry David Thoreau. Walt Whitman. Scientific achievement. NASA. SpaceX. Boston Dynamics. World-renowned hospitals. Robert Oppenheimer. Richard Feynman. Thomas Edison. Carl Sagan. Andrew Huberman. Iconic monuments. The Statue of Liberty. Mount Rushmore. The Gateway Arch. The Empire State Building. The Capitol. Extraordinary leaders. George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. Benjamin Franklin. Abraham Lincoln. Frederick Douglass. Teddy Roosevelt. FDR. JFK. Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Douglas MacArthur. George Patton. Martin Luther King Jr. Powerful fighters. Sugar Ray. Muhammad Ali. Mike Tyson. Joe Frazier. George Foreman. Rocky Balboa. Jon Jones. Soul. Frank Sinatra. Billy Joel. Taylor Swift. Michael Jackson. Becky G. Bruce Springsteen. Meek Mill. Future. Kenny Chesney. Justin Bieber. Zac Brown Band. Luke Bryan. Lil Baby. Thomas Rhett. Toby Keith. Tupac. Jay-Z. Beyonce. Rihanna. Post Malone. Lil Uzi. Katy Perry. Whitney Houston. Machine Gun Kelley. Jennifer Lopez. Migos. Train. Lil Wayne. Eminem. Red Hot Chili Peppers. A boogie wit da hoodie. Maroon 5. Tom Petty. Bruno Mars. Pop Smoke. Unprecedented wealth creation. Wall Street. Times Square. Berkshire Hathaway. JP Morgan. Coca-Cola. Facebook. Blackrock. Nike. IBM. Pfizer. Walmart. Apple. Amazon. Microsoft. Google. YouTube. AT&T. Twitter. Intel. McDonalds. CVS. Exxon. Starbucks. Boeing. Disney. Bank of America. Goldman Sachs. Ford. Tesla. Media juggernauts. The New York Times. The Wall Street Journal. The New York Post. The Washington Post. Bloomberg. The LA Times. The Boston Globe. Comedic genius. Dave Chappelle. Bill Burr. Joe Rogan. Kevin Hart. Tim Dillon. The Hangover. Superbad. The Office. Seinfeld. Family Guy. A mixture like no other of ethnicities and religions. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindis, Buddhists, and any belief system you can think of. English, Spanish, and any language you can think of. Theft of all the world’s cuisine with tasty Italian, Chinese, and Mexican restaurants everywhere. The spectacular celebratory parties during Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and The 4th of July. Sublime nature. The Grand Canyon. The Rocky Mountains. The Great Plains. The Appalachian Mountains. The Great Lakes. The Everglades. Yellowstone. Burncoat park. The Redwood Forest. The Maine wilderness. The Mississippi River. The Missouri River. The Montana big sky. California beaches. Carolina beaches. Florida beaches. Cape Cod. And most importantly, the hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans living in the land of the free. The farmers, the factory workers, the restaurant providers, the garbage men, the construction workers, the teachers, the office workers. The backbone of the United States.
All that was without even mentioning historic Americans who weren’t born here—Elon Musk, Lex Fridman, Arnold Schawarzenegger, Sergey Brin, Albert Einstein, Ayn Rand, Yeonmi Park, Caser Chavez, Drake, Bob Marely, Alex Trebek, Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Chan, David Ortiz, Sammy Sosa, Bruce Lee, and Nikola Tesla, to name a few.
The foreign-born scientists, entrepreneurs, athletes, and artists want to come here. Jeff Bezos' adoptive father was a refugee from Cuba; Steve Jobs’ biological father was a Syrian Muslim. They come for education. They come for opportunities to create wealth. They come for the freedom to live their dream and create a good life for their families.
III. Due Nuance
Sure, I’m just another straight, white, capitalist, American patriot preaching that America is #1. But for what its worth, I also grew up playing sports in a diverse city, speak multiple languages, and recognize many of the criticisms of America as valid. I’m not dismissive of the problems this country has had and has:
There’s the endless gun debates and sinister reality of mass shootings being commonplace. There’s the terrible history of slavery. There’s the awful history of Japanese internment camps. There’s the horrific history Native American genocide. There’s police brutality against black people. There’s crime ridden cities with not enough police. There was the Civil War and the KKK. There is gang and mob violence. There’s antifa violence. There’s the danger of QAnon. There’s fascist delusions. There’s communist mind viruses. There was the BLM riots. There was the January 6th insurrection. There’s angry populism. There’s angry wokeism. There’s tribalism and extremism, exacerbated by social media. There’s southern border controversies. There's incarceration controversies. There’s record levels of obesity. There’s drug addiction of all kinds. There’s a disturbing prevalence of poverty and homelessness. There’s a high percentage of 1 parent households and broken families. There’s lack of equality of opportunity. There’s the questionable wars our government has waged. There’s the fact we are the only country to ever deploy a nuke. There’s the military-industrial complex, government overreach, and unconstitutional actions by the CIA and FBI. There’s corporate fraud, greed, and lies. There’s political corruption. There’s media scandals, censorship, and cover-ups. All real. All complicated. All terrible.
I don't subscribe to ignorant nationalism. "Nationalism is an infantile disease" Albert Einstein said, "It is the measles of mankind". We laugh at dogs who piss to mark their territory; yet we are monkeys who will insult and kill each other over lines we drew in the dirt.
In some sense, nation-states are basically made up by politicians and military. But cultures are very real. Shared beliefs, customs, norms, laws, and attitudes are real. And America’s general culture is special and beautiful despite all its shortcomings and hypocrisy.
Everyone is a victim of someone’s propaganda, including me. I acknowledge that in some sense I’m brainwashed to love this country. But it’s still apparent America is radically different from any other place in a good way. And that radical difference is our radical freedom.
We are free to express ourselves. Does that make up for all the problems we have? No. But it stops worse problems from manifesting. Read a little history, and there will be no mistaking it: the first move of tyranny is to prevent freedom of expression—to thwart freedom of speech, media, and thought itself, rationalized in some menacing way, usually the ‘need to protect people from dangerous ideas.’ In America, we have protections against such evil.
There’s a reason freedom of speech is the first amendment in the Constitution. There’s a reason our first president wrote that “if the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” It’s because one of the greatest characteristics of America is tolerance for other people’s rights. Especially when we don’t like how others exercise their rights. Due to the way our country is set up and the way our culture functions, we have no choice but to agree to disagree, and move on.
So let us be thankful for our culture of open-mindedness, adventure, and individual liberty. Let us be thankful for our comparatively reliable institutions. Let us be thankful for our opportunities to preserve and build upon our wealth and knowledge. Let us express gratitude for our home, the beacon of freedom, the grand melting pot, the cultural machine, the powerful magnet of excellence, the shining city on the hill.
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