Just rambling while daydreaming

Is everything around me in this country, really so bad that all too often I seem all too willing to find fault with something or someone. Have I lost sight of the good and great things about America.

The entire world knows that the USofA, America, is a conglomeration of every race, color and creed from everywhere else. I am proud to say ?I am an American?. Part of a strong united society. Yet, when I hear the terms Irish-American, or Afro-American, or Italian-American , or Mexican-American, I wonder if those using the term are trying to tell me that they are only partly an American. It worries me.

Today, we find ourselves caught up in a very divided Middle East. We have been involved there long before Iraq. That part of the world has been, and remains, divided by archaic hatreds, religious wars and idealogical differences that can never be allowed to become part of our society. Our ancestors, and newly arrived immigrants, came to America to escape religious and political persecutions.

As America strives to give democracy a foot hold in oppressed areas of the world, I too often hear dissenters in my country voicing the opinion that ?it will never work.? I wonder what America would be like today if, on December 7, 1941, or September 11, 2001, we would have kicked back and taken the attitude ??maybe we should try to see it from their viewpoint ?.

I continue to hope that these dissenters take notice that large renegades of armed individuals don?t roam America. We ?marched? when we had to, but have never kept large armies of soldiers when there was no need.

I also ask that these dissenters don?t hold the men and women in uniform, fighting in some distant land, in disrespect, or consider them fools. They?re making it possible for the rest of us to enjoy deciding to which tune we will march.

It seems all of my life I have taken for granted the freedoms I enjoy. I have taken for granted the freedom to do the kind of work I choose, and to travel unrestricted throughout this great country. I have taken for granted the freedom to choose which church I attend. I have taken for granted our political system and the ?obligation? to choose/elect members to our government.

Sure, I recognize imperfections in our society, and that?s good, because most of the time it makes me work with others to make things better. It also tends to make me stop taking everything for granted, and remember the good things, foremost FREEDOM, that must be worked at and ?protected?.

Freedom is never Free.