Wayne writes:

> Had I *not* known who he was, I hardly would have been upset by his
> remarks.  It was distressing seeing vulgar jokes and anti-American
> rhetoric from someone I (formerly) admired and respected.

To my mind, Fred has said nothing "anti-American." Indeed, if anyone, he
seems to understand better than anyone what it means to be an American.

The United States is not merely a country with borders to be defended,
passports to be issued or taxes to be paid. Rather it is and always has been
a set of ideals, and if I have any religion at all, it is a deep devotion to
those ideals. The United States is a grand experiment, at one time unique in
all of human history, one where the governed consent to temporarily give to
those chosen few the power to govern themselves. The governors do whatever
they do only in name of the people, with their blessing, and only with their
resolve.

Nothing like the fundamental philosophies that United States represents ever
existed in the history of the world prior to its formation 225 years ago, and
those ideals continue to be, as Lincoln said, the last, best hope for
mankind. What was once a philosophy of justice and fairness that was
constrained to 13 small colonies lying along the eastern seaboard of North
America is now rapidly becoming the worldwide norm, and that is reason enough
for enormous celebration. But whenever the United States screws up -- as it
did in the case of the overthrow of the duly elected government of Salvador
Allende in Chile -- it is because someone in the government lost faith in
those ideals. And to me, that is the true epitome of anti-Americanism.

Nothing Fred has said disturbs me a bit. If anything, he is my notion of an
ideal American. When we pass a law to ban the burning of the American flag,
as we attempt to do every so often, we have not only lost all hope, but all
sense of what the United States is about.

Wirt Atmar

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