So Gwen Ifill interviews this delegate from Massachusetts (I didn't catch his name) at the Democratic Convention in between speeches last night, and he says, "I want to be as proud of America as I am of Americans."  I couldn't have said it better myself.  

I have very conflicted feelings about my country right now, and conflicted feelings about why I seem so desperate to leave it.  My whole life I've been told that America is the greatest country in the world, and while I don't really doubt that, I am feeling two things: 1) that I need to go out into the world to see that for myself and 2) great as it is, it has a whole lot of flaws. 

My friend Josh got his masters from Bristol and he said after spending nine months in England he was hoping that when he came back America would seem all shiny and new and he would be reminded of why he loved it so much.  That didn't happen.  He said maybe he needed to spend more time away. 

I will never forget the feeling of my stomach sinking when I was in a bar in Rome in January 2002, my first time out of the country since 9/11, and a guy said to me, "Well, America kind of got what they deserved, didn't they?"  He wasn't a Muslim extremist or anything like that, he was a Roman.  A westerner!  I learned that a lot of people don't like America, and it's not necessarily the people you think. 

I need to travel the world and judge for myself if America is the best place for me.  It might not be a given, like so many Americans assume.  A lot of Americans take what's given to them.  A lot will never challenge it.  I don't want to be like that.  I want to love my country because I love my country, and not because somebody told me to love it.