From Sunday Stealing
Patriotic Meme
1. Are you "proud to be an American"?
A. I am a citizen of the world. The fact that I live in the United States is secondary to that. I am glad that I live here, because it is lovely country, and my suspicion is that I have opportunities here that I might not have elsewhere. However, my patriotism ends where it impacts upon others. I am an equal-opportunity humanist.
2. Favorite Founding Father?
A. I am partial to both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Both were smart and inventive.
3. Favorite president?
A. I will limit this to my lifetime, and so will say Bill Clinton. He did some damage but the country on the whole prospered under his presidency.
4. Biggest "Patriotic Moment"?
A. Probably the feelings evoked nationwide after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11/2001. For a while there, we were a united country. Unfortunately that unity did not last long.
5. Favorite patriotic song?
A. America the Beautiful.
6. Favorite American cuisine?
A. Chocolate chip cookies. I don't know if that is American cuisine but that is my answer.
7. Happiest political moment of your life?
A. When Patty Hearst was freed. I suppose some people think she was "captured." Her kidnapping and then her subsequent "joining" of the Symbionese Liberation Army are my first memories of becoming aware of the greater political world around me. For reasons I can't explain, I related strongly to this woman. Even I, then an 11-year-old child, knew that Hearst was joining with her kidnappers to keep herself alive and that she had been brainwashed. They call it Stockholm Syndrome today, where you join with your captors. In any event, our stupid political leaders convicted her and put her in jail for two years (she really needed psychological help, not imprisonment). Bill Clinton pardoned her fully in 2001, his last official act of office.
8. Best fireworks display you've ever seen?
A. I like them all. I've only seen small-town shows, never big displays like in the cities.
9. America's gift to the world?
A. Me. LOL. I googled that and the answers that came up were Ben Franklin, the Internet, jazz, and endless war. So I think maybe my first answer was the correct one.
10. Favorite Bill of Rights right?
A. I rather like them all, although my interpretation of the Second Amendment differs from the rednecks around me.
11. Favorite American Holiday?
A. Thanksgiving. You get to eat all you want and you don't have to an excuse.
12. Favorite D.C. monument?
A. The Library of Congress, of course. IT is our nation's oldest cultural institution. And it has books. It is full of knowledge.
13. Your dream for America's future?
A. One without pain.
I have to say that I also like Thomas Jefferson. What an interesting person and his home is quite inspiring.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching Howdy Doody as a preschooler and seeing the part where they salute to the flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance and feeling effected and overwhelmed by it. One of my favorite 4th of July memories is being part of a blueberry pie eating contest as a kid!
ReplyDeleteLove reading your answers to these. I would put Madison right up there with Jefferson, and my favorite song is "God Bless the USA" -- I have two really great memories that feature that song.
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