why should I be a patriot? what's so great about the United States of America? where does it say I have to be a patriot

There are lots of people who have written about this, they were better educated more articulate and more refined than I could ever expect to be, many of them were more pissed off than I ever have been, some of them took actions that I never would. Yet here is my attempt to explain to you just why you should take a knee . Or stand and salute if you so choose.
Some of you may have read my previous posts @yzart, I suffered the abuse of imprisonment for a little bit of cannabis mixed in with bubble gum as just a young child. Once inside the system I suffered even more abuse, I have never described it and I never will. At the time of my release from the system , the 21st of June 1974, the rivers and streams of America were still quite pure,
I could have never imagined then that by the time I turn 60 / 1/3 of the life and all the waters in the oceans of the world would already be dead. What I have personally termed species collapse syndrome, I could have never guess then that we the people, would come to Define, we the the Corporations . In 1974 I never could have imagined a world wide web connected by personal communication devices that I could wear on my wrist or hold in my hand like I'm doing now and convert my speech to text , the world in which I would be able to communicate to people all around the globe with the push of a blue button that says post, not even a blue button but a virtual Blue . A world in which my faults and flaws would be visible to everyone, just like the faults and flaws of this country America are visible to everyone, we can also see the faults and flaws of the rest of the world more easily, even people like me with a very low education have the ability to comprehend very complex scenarios. I never knew that social media would become such a teacher. I would love to point out to you what's wrong with America, but right now I would like to take a moment to tell you what's great about America,
First the freedom of speech still exist here like possibly no other place that I've ever heard of, if there are other places with freedom of speech they've been influenced by our great Constitution, you know other people places less fortunate , publish their thoughts and soon there's a knock at the door handcuffs off to prison ,hardlabor, death... you don't need me to tell you about freedom of speech, if you're an American you've enjoyed it every day of your life. Need I mention the freedom of assembly, the freedom of Decent, freedom to vote, there's still lots of places on this Earth where you don't have freedoms like that, hear you're free to criticize the president of the United States if you so choose, you're free to get on an airplane and fly over to North Korea and criticize the supreme leader if you want to, or go to Iran and criticize the Ayatollah, the freedom to travel is one of the greatest experiences that I know of, this is the only country that I know of where you can start your own religion, charity or cooperative, you can opt out of almost anything, Creator join almost any kind of organization, if you're determined enough you can actually change the laws of this great country, of course it's been observed that that would take an act of Congress, yet there is a process for even that, the thing that pissed me off about the president that we have now is not his ethics which definitely stirred my distrust, it was the slogan that he chose to run for president, make America great again, America has always been great since the founding fathers and the others pledge their heads their hearts their Fortunes in signing the Declaration of Independence, there never has been a day when America was not GreAt, oh yes it can be greater but not without your help and dedication.
So I invite you all to start your day by thinking about how good things are and how much better they can be. So taking me for this great country and say a prayer, and then stand and salute and deliver on your obligation to serve. If you don't like it then do some work to change it but do it peacefully ,
What we must do is more important than we have ever done before !!!

As always thanks for reading and this morning I give thanks it's specially for the freedom to write . I'm proud to be an American, humble and longing for a more perfect Union