When Our Friends Remind Us Of Who We Americans Are

On this day, remember that we have friends that love us and respect us. They believe in us as Americans, so believe in them that believe in us. Sure, sometimes they're taking the piss (as our British cousins say), but it's still affectionate parody. Let us be the Americans our friends see in us.

Yeah, a lot of cowboys and boisterous stereotypes- often coupled with a provicialism that's mocked. At least they get our appreciation for the merits of firepower.

I kid. They also appreciate our attempt at being a Republic and trying to migitate the excesses of Democracy, our value for the individual, and our traditional Can Do spirit even when they knock us for being loud, boorish, and sometimes naive. Remember that trope of the Big (Naive) Bruiser? That's how we're often seen abroad by our friends.

What does this tell you?

First, we do have a distinct national identity. Second, we do have a distinct national character and culture. Third, we are--even at this time, terrible as it is--still thought of as a well-meaning nation, albeit one saddled with a terrible government and an influx of outsiders adulterating and degrading what is uniquely ours by exploiting our weaknesses.

Well-meaning friends, by mocking our weaknesses, are telling us what we ought to be looking at to address our problems. We have become an insular people to a significant degree, and the Internet did not change this. We have let our altruism become a vice, such that we've been exploited by paraisitic plunderers for generations at this point- and those same are now comprising our insitutional leadership to use state power--our state power--against us.

We are in trouble, and our friends can only do so much due to problems of their own, so the most we're going to get is some cheerleading from the sidelines as we are forced to do as Odysseus did upon returning to Ithica: clean house, purge the parasites, and restore order.

Then, and no sooner, can we turn around to help our friends with their problems. Only after we sort our own issues are we able to aid others. Independence has a price, and that price--poetically put--is to pick our own damned cotton.