Your wish in your 7/4 op-ed, that “people who live in the United States and hate it” should leave, implies you long for the time when “men and women far more courageous than I am broke Britain's chains of tyranny.” You miss a dynamic of our history: grand ideals. 1/21

Our founding documents [FN1] include “all men are created equal” & were written by white males who owned property. No woman signed any of the documents. No woman could vote. [FN2] Another contradiction for “a land that’s known as freedom”? [FN3] 2/21

People from Africa brought here in chains & sold as slaves were called a “subordinate, inferior class of beings” subjugated by the dominant race & had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” [FN4] Slavery contributed a ton to this country’s wealth. 3/21

In seceding, Georgia set the monetary value of its slaves as “$3,000,000,000 of our property.” [FN5] By 1850, 1.8 million of the 3.2 million slaves in the country’s 15 slave states produced cotton; [FN6] 1860, the South produced almost 75 % of all U.S. exports & [FN7] 4/21

cotton was the largest export. [FN8] The Framers compromised to accommodate slavery. Civil War was inevitable. You say with free speech & free markets as guideposts the U.S. has become the world's most prosperous nation. 1890s: Laissez-faire was brought to heel. 5/21

That was after people saw horrors of child labor, crap dumped into our water & air, and the rich getting richer at the expense of everyone else. You also credit “free speech” for this country’s economic success. Saying “free speech” does not work magic on anything. 6/21

Commerce has not rocketed to the stars, even w/the best Super Bowl® ads. Free speech is one of the first targets for a wannabe dictator. The person now in the Oval Office sues people or eggs on bullies to shut people up. Speech is not “free” if it only is allowed to praise a dictator. 7/21

Authoritarian regimes love concentration camps & a compromised judiciary. Alligator Auschwitz is being erected in Fla. And judges! Where was an envelope stuffed w/cash at the SOTU? trump learned somewhere how to slip something into another man’s fine apparel. NYC? 8/21

Had to be from his mentor Roy Cohn. You say: “The United States also possesses the most lethal military in the world. Yet, our military might has been used far more often to liberate than to conquer.”[FN9] As to “liberate” or “conquer,” there are other choices. 9/21

The U.S. aided both sides in a war between major oil producers, Iran and Iraq. [FN10] Hundreds of thousands died, but we got cheap gas. We’ve also overthrown elected governments. (Chile, 1973; Iraq, 1953; I could go on). Whom do you admit we conquered? 10/21

Our country’s history is not simple. The Framers espoused liberty, yet at least 20 of the 55 were slaveholders, most of whom admitted slavery was wrong. Yet several slave States outlawed slaves learning how to read and write. [FN11] At the start of the Civil War, slaves 11/21

were nearly half of the population of the States of the Confederacy. That many people were out of work and w/o marketable job skills. They had, and their descendants have, every right to be here. Reconstruction actually was working, until a deal was cut in 1876. [FN12] 12/21

I do not hate this country. Racism is a different matter & is exacerbated by those who ignore our history & embrace a wannabe that a foreign dictator placed in the Oval Office. I don’t smear you when I say you’re mean-spirited and a dumbass. It’s not a smear if it’s the truth. 13/21

You mention those other countries. You go there & have fun. Saudi? Pals of trump. My roots here go way back. I oppose the administration illegally placed in 2016 and again in 2020. The actions of trump are void. 14/21

Footnotes:
FN1. Defined as The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. “Charters of Freedom,” Nat’l Archives, accessed 5/31/25. Congress adds The Federalist, 85 essays written by Madison, Hamilton & Jay, & publ’d betw 1787 & 1788. 15/21

FN2. Marylynn Salmon,”The Legal Status of Women, 1776-1830,” p. 3, accessed 7/5/25.
(to advocate ratification).
FN3. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, “Chicago,” from the live recording on “4 Way Street.”
FN4. Dred Scott v Sanford, 60 U.S. 404-05 (1857). 16/21

FN5. Georgia secession statement, Jan 29, 1861.
FN6. Dan Allosso, “Slavery and King Cotton,” Pressbooks via Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project, accessed 7/5/25.
FN7. “Slavery and the Economy: An Overview,” encyclopedia dot com, accessed 5/5/25.
FN8. American Civil War Voices, “They Wore Cotton,” 17/21

FN9. A thing is “lethal” if it “May or will cause death.” Oxford English Dictionary, Compact ed., 1971, Vol. I, p. 1607. That’s what a military force can do. I guess when the person in the Oval Office dodged the draft for non-ideological reasons, he wants a “tough” aura. 18/21

FN10. “Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs,” Brown University, accessed 7/5/25. 19/21

FN11. South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia. See, Janet Duitsman Cornelius, “When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South,” (1991). University of South Carolina Press. 20/21

FN12. Read about Rutherford B. Hayes and the end of reconstruction. 21/21