I am a citizen of the United States of America, not because of anything I have done to deserve it but because it is my birthright. I was born here and that is all I need.  I am not the child of former slaves but, instead, am a descendant of a long line of white Northern Europeans who came here for the same reason brown people from the central and southern American continent come here today—with hope and for opportunity.

I am an American Citizen, a hyphenated German-French-Scots-Irish-English-American, whose ancestors by their everyday lives helped this country achieve a greatness too easily given away. I am married to a Swedish-American Citizen whose ancestors came here for the same reasons mine did—with hope, seeking a better and safer life than they had and could have in their old countries.  We are proud of our hyphens.

I am an American Citizen because the first person with my name settled in Virginia on land granted him by Queen Elizabeth I because of his work as the captain of a privateer who fought pirates on the Spanish Main. The first name is a common one in the family and carries with it genetic linkages to a courageous forefather.

I am American Citizen proud of the good that our country has achieved regardless of how increasingly embarrassed I might be with what its contemporary leadership wants it to be.

I am an American Citizen who loves his country even when given manifold opportunities to dislike it.

I am an American Citizen free to practice my religion but not free to force others to adopt it, and free to object to those who by social or legal means try to force their religion on me.

I am an American Citizen who respects the National Guard but will oppose a National Police. I will not show an identity card to one of them who greets me at my polling place or anywhere else. Nor will I acknowledge them as I walk freely down any street where they have been directed to patrol.

I am an American Citizen who believes my voting records are between me and my county election authority and no one, not even a federal agency, has any right to them.

I am an American Citizen who believes I can call myself by any party name I wish at any time in my life, and—in fact—have spent my life loyal to no party, which also is my right as an American Citizen.

I am an American Citizen unafraid of my past, knowing that slavery WAS “that bad,” and acknowledging that some members of the southern branch of my family undoubtedly owned black people. I will not apologize for them; the historical records are unavoidable despite any efforts to obscure them. The “original sin” of America remains a sin only if we continue to avoid responsibilities all of us share with and for each other regardless of color, heritage, belief, or self-identity today.

I am an American Citizen who believes acknowledging the past and moving to correct its faults is a mark of national greatness, who believes it takes more courage to correct than to hide, that hiding is a sign of American Cowardice. Progress, not regression, makes greatness.

I am an American Citizen who cherishes my right to see, to hear, to read, to learn, and to therefore think and act, a library board president who will vigorously oppose all who profess to be the ones who can dictate truth or limit opportunities to find it, an information consumer who abhors the consolidation of media on the basis of financial self-interest above the public interest, particularly that segment overseen by a federal government agency with licensing power that wants to control the variety of voices we once had and must regain.                                                                                                                            I am an American Citizen who refuses to believe that all other rights in all other amendments are possible because of the Second Amendment.

I am an American Citizen who believes none of the other amendments would be possible without the FIRST Amendment. In particular, I believe all have a right to responsible speech, agreeable to me or not and the right to petition our government for redress of infringements on the rights granted to me by national documents and physical heritage.

I am an American Citizen who will not tolerate those who seek power or seek to maintain it through division, derision, and disrespect.

I am an American Citizen because I believe we can be better tomorrow than today, by building on the best of what we have been, not tearing down the good that we are.

I am an American citizen who does not believe in the melting-pot but instead believes we are a stew made tastier by the separate ingredients that meld, not melt, within the national bowl.

I am an American Citizen who hates hate except toward those who fuel hate, take advantage of hate, and themselves hate others.

I am an American Citizen who fears not the present because he remembers the past and therefore can hope for a better future. .

I am an American Citizen who needs not wrap himself in the flag to proclaim his patriotism but will display his love of country in his daily living and his daily defense of all who seek, as our founders put it, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am an American Citizen because I will not give up on my country, be accused of giving up on my country, or being told I must leave behind the country where I have lived for all of my life.

I am American Citizen who will not live by bumper sticker mottos but lives by thought and deed, and the words of Thomas Wolfe:

…To every man his chance—to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity—to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him — this, seeker, is the promise of America.

I am an American Citizen who will never forsake that promise—

—because I have lived it.

I

Am

An

AMERICAN

CITIZEN!

(Advertisement is from the Columbia Daily Tribune, probably in the 70s; Cartoon by Wiley Miller, distributed by Andrews McMeel Publishing)