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How Europe and communism messed me up - and how the US constitution is unique:
When I just arrived in USA in this phase, current times, I did not understand Americans.
🇺🇸 I did not understand the talk of constitution, the talk of freedom, the expression towards the flag and I did not understand the essence of the country.
Of course there are people who have made it an identity or perhaps even attribute incorrect things to it (both on either side of the spectrum) but my love and UNDERSTANDING for USA grew fast as I was un-doing my Europeness.
📖 To illustrate my family;
my grandmother was a business women in a time where everything was against her. She had cultivated 9 stores (toys and arts) over the nation and worked extremely hard.
😔 The communists took her stores.
After taking the stores they would raid the house bi-weekly and take anything else that she and her husband accumulated.
She died of disbelief with the mantra “they can’t take it just like that right? They must give it back?”.
This was only possible because our nation didn’t have any rules set about what the government is allowed to do and what not.
When the c19 happened, most of European countries closed down to an extent USA can not imagine.
😡 Some countries required a form signed by country daddy that allowed you to do grocery shopping.
The streets were filled with law enforcement that apparently had little problem with handling its own neighbors (I have some funny stories about that) and the country daddy set up an”snitch”-phone line to report if you think your neighbor was doing anything against the c19 guidelines.
Most small business didn’t make it and the compensation or support was none-existent.
Fast forward to me accidentally ending up in USA and actually experiencing a culture shock:
🐴 I am surrounded mostly with redneck or business people - both of which appreciate to be left alone and just want to do their thing, so my europeness got washed out of me real soon.
Finding myself asking daily: can I do this here? And my husband responding “well yeah, this isn’t Europe”.
Finding myself asking questions in regards to how far a country daddy could overreach in extreme scenarios
(reminder, the extreme scenarios that American often speak off is not extreme in Europe nor is it “far away in the past” for the East Block, it’s very alive)
and I am blessed that the husband has the patience to sit me down and express how certain situations are unlikely to happen, or what the path would be for them to happen, in the American system 🇺🇸.
Then there are people who love the idea of oppressive systems. Whether it being communism or country daddy commanding you how to move through normal daily life.
Those people I call weak - but that too is for another day.
📖🇺🇸 So when you ask me why I love the USA - let your answer be found in here.
There is a reason that immigrants from communist countries become extremely patriotic - because what for most people doesn’t even exist in the realm of nightmare, has been the norm where they come from.
💅 And lastly,
The majority of people have no idea about the constitution.
And I would extent this invitation, regardless on where you are on the spectrum, to actually dive into the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the essence of how this all came to be.
Your favorite opinionated legendary AmeriSlav
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