| |
Boston Red Sox outfielder Manny
Ramirez missed a game on May 10.
The Dominican-born player had other things to do.
Baseball took a backseat for Ramirez that day. That's
hard to swallow since most of us would kill for an
at-bat, but he had a good reason.
As the Red Sox brass said, "It was an excused absence."
You see, it was important enough for Ramirez, the much
maligned and much misunderstood power hitter, to head to
Miami that day, not to face a magistrate or to deal with
some unpleasant off-the-field incident.
Instead, he missed that day's game because he was being
sworn as a U.S. citizen. When Ramirez returned to his
post in the Fenway outfield, he charged out of the
dugout in a full sprint, held high in his hand was an
American flag.
Being a U.S. citizen means something to Ramirez. He is
proud to call himself an American, something most of us
take for granted every single day.
When I saw Ramirez take the field, hoisting Ol' Glory, I
felt chills go up and down my spine. This was a proud
moment for a proud man. It made me feel good. It made me
feel good for him. He has found a home and we're greater
for it.
He understands America's greatness. He wants part of it.
He is part of it. And I'm proud he is.
Ramirez understands that this is the greatest nation on
the face of the earth, despite what Michael Moore(on,
get it? A play on "moron"), the hand wringers of the
left and the group-hug crew that thinks we ought to seek
out the counsel of other "friends," like France, Germany
and North Korea, think.
We are Americans. We have earned the right to do things
on our own terms. As I said last year, the only reason
we aren't world powers in soccer, water polo or ski
jumping is that we haven't made it a point of emphasis.
The U.S. of A. finances the world. We are the global
breadbasket and we need to exploit that more. Maybe that
might draw down the price of petroleum. Paul Harvey once
said, "a bushel of grain for a barrel of oil."
It burns me up to see our own citizens running down our
country, our military, our way of life. But we're
Americans and I'm glad we have the right to run down our
country if we want to. I remember Amnesty
International's Adotei Akwai saying that having a
meeting (such as the one he addressed on human rights at
Bethel College recently) could get you arrested or even
killed.
Not here folks. We're Americans. We play by the rules.
Some people lament that we are the freest nation on the
earth. They claim that, in order to placate those in the
U.N., we might have to relinquish some of our
"freedoms." Well the late, great Ronald Reagan once
said, "freedom isn't plural." He was right. We enjoy
freedom, not freedoms. Many have died preserving our
freedom. We have earned it and shouldn't relinquish it.
Those same Haite-Asbury holdovers claim that if we just
give the likes of Usama Bin Laden a hug, that if we try
to get along with the communists of the world, they'll
like us. That pusillanimous theory has been debunked
time and again.
Some of the Moore(on) ilk lament that we aren't more
like Leninist Russia. They deride America because it is
the most affluent nation on earth. In some nations, the
biggest worry is whether their rancid goat stew has
maggots in it and if their cave will withstand another
day of inclement weather/shelling/civil commotion. In
America, our biggest concerns seem to be J-Lo's love
life, the validity of interleague play and whether
Britney Spears sought the help of a surgeon.
You know, I like our option better. Why? We've earned
the right to be affluent, to seek wealth, to seek life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
So France won't let us fly over its malodorous country
to protect it from terrorism. Funny, they didn't have a
problem with our aerial tactics 60 years ago. Thanks to
the U.S.A., French is still a spoken language between
the Mediterranean and North seas.
We are the greatest nation on the earth. We are the
freest, most affluent and best smelling unlike our
friends who we liberated 60 years ago.
It's the Fourth of July, be a proud American, like
Ramirez. |
|
