WHAT OTHERS SAY...
It was interesting to note that all the comments to the previous post about America and Americans were without any humor. There are many things about Americans that are humorous, and if you have done a great deal of international travel, you know about this. We stumble our way around the world, assuming that the world should adjust to us. And in the process reveal an ignorance that alarms others because we hold so much military and economic power and are using it more and more lately. Nevertheless, I have some views from others about what consitutes America and Americans...
"The best blood will sometimes get into a fool or a misquito." -Austin O'Malley
"I don't have to look up my family tree, because I know that I'm the sap." -Fred Allen
"My folks didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they were there to meet the boat." -Will Rogers
"The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consumation." -Woodrow Wilson
"I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damned good word with which to carry an election." -Warren G. Harding
"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves." -John Wayne
"The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation." -William McKinley
"I confess that I cannot understand how we can plot, lie, cheat and commit murder abroad and remain humane, honorable, trustworthy and trusted at home." -Archibald Cox
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." -Thomas Jefferson
"America is the country where you buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for one dollar, and use it up in two weeks." -John Barrymore
"How prophetic L'Enfant was when he laid out Washington as a city that goes around in circles!" -John Mason Brown
"This will never be a civilized country until we spend more money on books than we do on chewing gum." -Elbert Hubbard
"America is a land where a citizen will cross the ocean to fight for democracy -- and won't cross the street to vote in a national election." -Bill Vaughn
"At the moment the United States is the most powerful, the most prosperous, and the most dangerous country in the world." -Robert Maynard Hutchins
"Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character: it is not a matter of birthplace or creed or line of descent." -Theodore Roosevelt
"My rackets are run on strictly American lines and they're going to stay that way!" -Al Capone
"Patriotism is not enough." -Edith Cavell
"With malice toward none, with charity for all ... let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds." -Abraham Lincoln
"Every man loves and admires his own country because it produced him." -Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"Human sovereignty transcends national sovereignty." -Lester B. Pearson
I've met Americans on the streets of just about every major American city, literally hundreds and hundreds of small towns and farms, in Canada, Mexico, Berlin, Russia, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels, and on and on and on. The miracle of America to me is that these people here and abroad represented a wide spectrum of beliefs, different opinions of politics, the length and breadth of ideas of internationalism, morals, ethics, rights, geography, beauty, art, philosophy, My hope would be that we get over our tendency as individuals to want to regiment thought, and see people as us or "other." I hope I never limit my thinking about humanity by some geographic line. There are wonderful people everywhere. And that rainbow is what makes me proud to be a citizen of the world as well as the U.S.
