Oh, and hey, in case it comes up, and in case anybody ever asks you, and in case anybody ever says "if you don't like America, you can go live somewheres else," my response is this:
I love my country. I love the people in my country. I love the rich history we're living through, and I love the fact that, as far as countries go, ours is very young yet. We're barely a teenager in country terms. This is when the country needs two things: unconditional love and guidance. We need to grow up a little, and that means we have to get over the whole idea that we can be free-wheeling, gun-slinging, each other-murdering people, and be a functioning society that understands that the only way a society can work is for the people in it to not kill the people in it. America had a beautiful childhood that was a lot of fun. America got to learn from the best, some Adult Countries who've sort of been everywhere and done everything (one of them literally being pretty much everywhere for a while). This shaped the youth of this great country and that influence is still very much obvious today. It's why we say "bless you" when people sneeze and why we have this need to go take over Mars: we came by our imperialism honestly. It's why we place so much importance on tradition and dynasty, even when those traditions and dynasties are only very new. It's why we say things like "serving you since 1986." Those things matter in Europe, and so they damn well matter to us. At least, that's how it has been. As we enter our adolescence, we are forming our own identity. Maybe we'll hang out with the wrong crowd for a while. Maybe we'll do things the hard way and reinvent the wheel a few times. That's fine, and that's our prerogative. The people of this country are its conscience and we have to do what is right because it is right. That's a hard lesson to learn and it smacks childhood squarely in the face. Adulthood is cold and a little boring, but it's a necessety: it's what happens when you stop being a child. I love my country and I love watching it grow up.