To Kill An American" A must-read by an Australian Dentist

[Catamount]

This was forwarded to me last night--and as an Aussie-American, I wanted to pass this lovely message on to all you hard workers at DU.



This is an absolutely beautiful tribute to our United States of America. Say what
you may ~ we still have the best country in the world. I thought this to be worthy of passing on. And an Australian wrote it. Many people love America - many people don't. But it is what it is and we are blessed (my humble opinion).








Written by an Australian Dentist....and too good to delete....


To Kill an American

You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.


So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)


"An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.


An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.


An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim.
In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.


An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.


An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.
The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.


An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.


When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!


As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least.


The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America.


Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.
< BR>
So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.


Please keep this going!
Pass this around the World ?
Then pass it around again.
It says it all, for all of us

[meegbear]

1. False!

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/america2.htm

[Catamount]

6. Thanks for enlightening me......

Wow....I just feel "soiled" now!
To think I fell for the sentimentality of the piece.
I'm glad I posted it here before passing it on.
However I'll take the positive out of the article--and continue the good fight as always.

[otohara]

7. My Friend Sent Me

an e-mail last week. A piece about some things Robin Williams NEVER, EVER said :

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/williams.asp

The right-wing does now how to fire up their base with total BS pieces like this.

[MindPilot]

2. this actually was from the national review -- just more right wing BS

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/america2.htm

[mzteris]

9. Peter Ferrera

Peter Ferrara, a senior policy adviser at the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation, says he, too, took money from Abramoff to write op-ed pieces boosting the lobbyist's clients. "I do that all the time," Ferrara says. "I've done that in the past, and I'll do it in the future."

Ferrara, who has been an influential conservative voice on Social Security reform, among other issues, says he doesn't see a conflict of interest in taking undisclosed money to write op-ed pieces because his columns never violated his ideological principles.

"It's a matter of general support," Ferrara says. "These are my views, and if you want to support them, then that's good." But he adds that at some point over the years, Abramoff stopped working with him: "Jack lost interest in me and felt he had other writers who were writing in more prominent publications," Ferrara says

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2005/nf20051216_1037_db016.htm

[bryant69]

3. I lke some of the ideals expressed here

But honesty requires admitting that we (the United States) regularly fail to live up to those ideals.

But then I think both of these statements are false --> The United States is perfect, without blemish/The United States is total shit, totally without merit.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[MindPilot]

8. And some of the--likely unintential--irony...

"When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!"

Which we did of course by arming and supplying one Osama bin Laden.

[otohara]

4. FYI - Austrailian Dentist Did Not Write This

FYI: The article "To Kill an American" was NOT written by an Australian dentist. Please see:

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/america2.htm

The article was written by Peter Ferrara. Peter Ferrara is an associate professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law, and a member of the Board of Scholars of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, an education and research organization headquartered in Potomac Falls, Virginia. He has graciously granted the right to reproduce the article, provided the author and his affiliations are cited. The article has been edited in the version you have. See the original article here:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-ferrara092501.shtml

or here:

http://www.islamreview.com/articles/tokillamerican.shtml

[bloom]

10. Also - probably paid by Abramoff for that.... more

Pundit Payola

Peter Ferrara, a "senior policy adviser" at the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation, admitted that he "took money" from Jack Abramoff "to write op-ed pieces boosting the lobbyist's clients. 'I do that all the time,' Ferrara . 'I've done that in the past, and I'll do it in the future'," Eamon Javers reported December 16, 2005, in Business Week. Ferrara said "he doesn't see a conflict of interest in taking undisclosed money to write op-ed pieces because his columns never violated his ideological principles."

"Ferrara wouldn't say which publications have published pieces for which Abramoff paid him," Javers wrote. "But a review of his work shows that he wrote articles for The Washington Times that were favorable to the Choctaw Indians and the Mariana Islands. He also wrote a 1998 book called The Choctaw Revolution: Lessons for Federal Indian Policy. Ferrara says the tribe paid him directly for his work on the book, which was published by the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and is still available for sale on Amazon.com."


Past Positions:
1988-91: senior fellow at the Cato Institute
1993-94: senior fellow Heritage Foundation
19??-95: senior fellow National Center for Policy Analysis

Current Positions:

International Center for Law and Economics, director
Social Security Project for the Free Enterprise Fund, director
Institute for Policy Innovation, Senior Policy Advisor, Social Security and Medicare
American Civil Rights Union, executive director
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), senior policy advisor on social security
Virginia Institute for Public Policy, member of Board of Scholars

Peter Joseph Ferrara heads the Social Security Project of the Free Enterprise Fund, which supports the Bush administration's effort to privatize Social Security.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Peter_J._Ferrara

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. This article, I'm sure,

Was sandwiched between an article about how we should keep Mexicans out, and an article about the final solution for the muslim problem.