In the wake of such horrific tragedies that America has come to face recently, many people have been very quick to criticize our great nation. During these hard times when people should be coming together to support one another, we are instead tearing down this wonderful nation that we all have the privilege to live in. People have openly stated that they are not proud to be an American, a thought that is baffling to me because there is no place I would rather live than the great United States.
Now, I won't make a bold statement and say that America is perfect, because we aren't. No country is perfect. We have room for improvement. But the advances that we have made in the past 240 years as a nation quickly surpass many others. Yet, people are still often quick to cry out, “if X happens I'm moving to Y”. Yet they are unaware of how lucky they are that they even have the option to talk about their country in such a negative light. Many countries have strict laws about internet use and criticizing their nations as a whole that people wouldn't even dare speak like that. There are countries where girls are stoned to death for being raped. There are countries where people don't have access to clean water. There are countries where girls aren't allowed to go to school. Where bombs go off in the streets daily. Where innocent people are killed due to radical violence. Yet, we all complain and easily scorn the country we live in because we don't progress fast enough.
It makes me so sad to see people who openly mock and diminish the successes that America does have. Although it took a while, we have marriage equality, bathrooms are becoming open for trans people, people are working to fight against bigotry. There are still many places in this world where if you don't consider yourself straight, you will be killed, there are places where the infant mortality rate is at 18%. It is easy to point out the bad things about our country, but we also need to look at the positive. We need to look at the kids going to college, the people helping out those less fortunate, the soldiers risking their lives to fight for our freedoms. We need to acknowledge our downfalls and praises.
In the past, when terrible things have happened to our nation, we have banded together to fix these problems and make our nation better. But now, we have stepped down to a place where when bad things happen, we blame our country and wish that we could live somewhere else. What this country needs is a reality check. Before you stomp on our flag in the name of "protest" think to yourself, if you lived somewhere else would you even have the option to do that?
