The case for patriotism

I’m not sure when my sense of patriotism began slipping away. Maybe it was in college, when I was exposed to a more complicated version of American history than I had previously known. Or maybe it was later, as a journalist covering the protests of people who felt — legitimately, it often seemed to me — as though they had been shortchanged out of the American dream. Or maybe it was when I had the opportunity to travel to other parts of the world, where I met people who had access to things like free health care and who were baffled by the idea of American exceptionalism. 

Whatever the case, for many years I experienced a creeping sense of cynicism about my home country. And by the time my first child was born, and I spent evenings reading over hospital bills and trying to plan child care, all I really wanted was to move to Europe, where it seemed both the health care and joie de vivre are universal.