I’m an American, born and bred. It is here on this soil where I have worked, played and suffered and laughed.

I’ve also travel abroad extensively and I have lived as a foreigner on European soil…and that where I was despised, kicked, spit on, shoved, sworn at, and shunned for no other reason than I was American.

I hated every minute that I spent in that place and made no attempt to mask my contempt for the continual physical and verbal punishment to which I was subjected, yet had no recourse. So you know what I did?

I left.

I couldn’t fix it, nor was my being there a matter of “can’t beat them, join them”. I could hardly change the fact that I was from a country whose politics they found comical and destroying the rest of the planet. But I also couldn’t combat the ignorant uninformed rhetoric that was constantly being fueled by biased media.

People always want to gripe about injustice they find intolerable and the typical response will come back to “if you don’t like it, leave/don’t look at it/walk away/fix it”. It was that simple.

It’s enough of a shame that people from foreign soil – who are here in the United States or any other country in the world – march into a new land seeking the hand-out they believe is rightfully theirs, only to slap away the providing hand once they’ve emptied it…and then ask for more.

But those are the ones whose voice and opinion can be justified, appealing or not. They have gained firsthand experience.

What’s worse is those armchair analysts from other countries who sit back and bash, condemn, sneer at, and insult the people and workings of the United States without having ever lived or even traveled here.

It’s easy to formulate opinions based on hollow information poured into every home through every form of technology – ‘if I read it online, it’s GOT to be true’, right? Weak minds are easily cajoled and misinformed; the general populous swayed into believing whatever buys the most viewership and advertising.

Not only does media not care what they spew, they don’t care what you think about it.

This phenomenon isn’t anything new to anyone – it just becomes more intensified around election times as we’re now seeing in the United States, and the rest of the world is keeping a very close and judgmental eye on the race for the seat of the most powerful person on earth.

More repulsive is those who have found an America goldmine of manipulation where they can sell their food, clothing, books, music, movies, cars and other wares and services; lining their pockets and making them millionaires that stuff their banks accounts with fortunes made off the backs of Americans, only to turn around and stick up their noses at ‘the inferior country’.

Please note: you don’t get it both ways.

I challenge you to this: those of you who have never lived in the United States – those of you who have never held a Social Security Card, never paid American taxes, never voted in an American political election – get yourself a calculator. Determine exactly how much money your talents and your own work has earned you in United States dollars.

No doubt in my mind the significant amount that bought your mansion, your sports cars, your diamonds would send eyebrows shooting.

Take your fortune and your lifestyle into account the next time you’re tempted to accuse Americans of being ugly, of our government being worthless, or whatever other insult that you would like to hurl toward a country on whose soil most of you have never stepped foot, but one which has generously padded your wallets.

Show your basis of comparison on which you found your indignation and as this certainly doesn’t apply to every person of every country – just as much as not every American is ugly – it does target those who are unable to rationally justify the moaning and complaining.

If you give that deep, rational, and educated thought and are still unable to dignify some intelligent discussion and engage in productive debate –

Sling your hook. We’re tired of hearing it.

I’m tired of hearing it – and I’m one person that has earned the privilege to stand up and defend my country’s honor after having been punished for it across the sea.