I love America and I can’t imagine living anywhere else in the world. But I’m sure there are those out there that have a very different opinion  of me. Some who accidentally come across my blog here have flatly told me so.  They think I must not love my country because I say critical things about it. Sadly I’m pretty sure that is the mentality that prompted Rudy Giuliani to recently say our president doesn’t love America or anyone in it.

I do not believe that the president loves America,” the former New York City mayor said Wednesday. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

SOURCE:Obama Derangement Syndrome –Vox.

Maybe those of us who say critical things about our country need to say more often “I love my country, but it is not perfect.”  We need to always strive to be better tomorrow than we are today. In fact those who seem to have a blindness to that belief are more dangerous to our future than I could ever be.

Charles Blow in a New York Times Op-Ed made the comment that “In fact, that (criticism) is a measure of love. Honest critique is a pillar of patriotism”.   One of the main differences between the U.S. and say Russia is that we are allowed, some would say encouraged, to criticize the actions of our leaders.  We are different from most of the rest of the world in that regard. In Egypt a blogger much like myself who made some mild criticism of that country was recently sentenced to receive one thousand lashes which is almost a death sentence because he blogged something they didn’t like. We are a great country because at least some of us in an attempt to make our country better speak out where we might fall short of our founding principles and morality.

When Rudy said the quote above he was quickly admonished by several in his party but not all.  But there were some of the presidential-wants-bes who are probably afraid of offending those in the base of their party by defending President Obama and didn’t have the courage to do so. I think those few (Rubio, Walker, and Jindal) have a distorted sense of their party’s base, or at least I hope they do.

Rudy needs to go back to his Catholic roots to learn not  to judge what is in others hearts, that is the business of God and He said as much.  I love this country but it is not perfect….