#17: Barbecue
There are at least as many variants of this American-devised cuisine as there are barbecue cooks in America, and the proper way to make barbecue sauce is a major topic of controversy in some areas.
And barbecue is mighty fine eats, too.
#16: Norman Rockwell
Modern artists and modern art professors are down on Norman Rockwell for the same reason that the Pharisees were down on Jesus. They want to be important, but there's someone who deserves it more and they resent it.
I admit that other nations have had good artists, and I agree that France's William Bouguereau is better than Rockwell. But he married an American.
#15: Harley-Davidson
I wish Harleys were quieter bikes, especially at 10:30 PM when the Harley riders go up my street, but I can cut a lot of slack for something this cool.
#14: The Automobile
In case you haven't noticed, the streets of your town are no longer covered with horse manure. You can thank Henry Ford for that.
#13: The Hamburger
Grilling hamburgers is the best way to spend a sunny afternoon outdoors without taking one's clothes off.
In addition to McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Hardee's, Fuddrucker's, and the other chain stores and independent restaurants that have this most excellent sandwich as their featured item, virtually every restaurant that has ground beef in the kitchen has a hamburger on the menu. No true American eschews the hamburger, except on the advice of a competent physician.
In my humble opinion the perfect hamburger has pepper jack cheese, jalapeno peppers, light mayo, lettuce, tomato, onions, and mustard; however, if I am the grill sergeant for the day—and I often am—a fresh, hot patty on a soft roll is highly acceptable fare, and will occupy the hand that is not holding the spatula.
Tales are told of how the hamburger originated in Germany (the name itself is a German adjective that means "from Hamburg"), but the item of cuisine that crossed over the Atlantic is like the American version only in that they contain ground beef.
#12: Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is as essentially American as Independence Day, and I daresay even more so; while the Fourth of July celebrates a political event—which every nation has in abundance—Thanksgiving celebrates prosperity, which most nations have only at fleeting moments.
Surely there is no better way to celebrate anything than to sit down with loved ones at a table laden with food; then, after eating slightly more than just the right amount of that food, to sit and watch the Detroit Lions lose a game of football.
#11: Wal-Mart
I'd be happier if Wal-Mart wasn't at the forefront of the current wave of outsourcing to China, but I like the idea of a store that has just about everything I want at reasonable prices and is open all the time. A lot of people whine that Wal-Mart runs smaller stores out of business, but this isn't true. It's the customers who run them out of business. In a free market, the replacement of one business by another is the result of the thousands of individual purchasing decisions made by the customers. In essence, the customers decide who gets to run a business.
But those who Know What's Best for Everyone Else don't like that. To them, paying higher prices for lower variety and more restricted hours is all good and fine as long as they can have things their way.
#10: We've Got Your Culture
For you non-Americans, this means that some of your fellow countrymen, in times past, have emigrated to the United States, and brought some of your culture with them. The parts we liked, we adopted as our own. This primarily extends to cuisine, but also includes other cultural developments as well. We've improved on many of them.
The upshot: People who opine about Americans' lack of culture are speaking nonsense. We have your culture, unless there's nothing good about it.
#9: The Bottomless Glass
During the most recent decade or so, an American restauranteur/restauranteuse noticed that a glass of soda costs only pennies, and after careful experiment confirmed that most people, when allowed to have all they want, will drink two or three at most, and that the sparing few who go hog-wild still leave the restaurant with a healthy profit on the transaction. Hence the bottomless drink was born.
At most major chains in America it is now de rigeur to have unlimited refills on all soft drinks during a single visit to the establishment. This means that you don't have to measure out your soda over the course of the meal, but can drink it as you please, and the waiter or waitress will bring you another if the one you have gets empty. At most fast-food places there is a soda fountain out in the dining area so that the customers can get all they want, and there are some full-service restaurants which will refill your soda as much as you wish, and then give you a full carry-out cup to go when you leave. You might believe that the unshackled capitalists of America would be too eager to gouge the customer at every opportunity, but you would have to be rather misinformed of practical economics to persist in this belief.
On the other hand, restaurants in Germany still charge for each glass of soda. Since they charge about double what American restaurants charge, I guess that the German government, which never met a tax it didn't like, demands a cut of every glass.
#8: College Football
Since I was born in Buffalo and grew up near Detroit, professional football holds little charm for me. But Michigan has Wolverine football and Spartan football, and most other states have something to be proud of.
Being in the Air Force, I have another team to cheer for: The Falcons. Fisher Deberry was the greatest coach in football, yea, greater than Lombardi, greater than Shula; his teams, though not the product of massive football recruiting efforts, were often ranked at some point in the season.
#7: Moral Restraint
Let us not dissemble: If Americans wanted to rule the world, there would be only one government today, it would be seated in Washington DC, and there would be nothing else but conquered vassals and the ruins of those who resisted.
The reason this picture is not presently so, and has not even been attempted, is because true Americans value the freedom of others every bit as much as we value our own. We have refrained from conquering the world because we believe that conquering it would be wrong.
There are hordes of anti-Americans who, not having any grasp of moral restraint, believe that we are on a course of world conquest, or they believe that we are too weak to do so. By mouthing either error, they are really confessing that if they had the power, they would set about ruling others. To them, to have power and not use it is literally unthinkable. To Americans, it isn't, and that is why there is no American Empire.
#6: The Second Amendment
History tells us that every dictatorship has permitted only its own loyalists to keep and bear arms. From this we may conclude that America is not a dictatorship.
A lot of people, non-Americans especially, point to our somewhat lax gun laws as proof that America has somehow not progressed into the modern era. In addition to forgetting that victim disarmament laws have been around since the dawn of time (which proves that gun control and modernity are completely unrelated), they also fail to realize that if the United Stated were to become a dictatorship, it would set about conquering the rest of the world.
Consequently, as much as every non-American may wish otherwise, it is in their best interest for private gun ownership to remain legal in America. Gun rights are the canary in the coal mine of freedom. As long as American private citizens are allowed to own and bear arms, the rest of the world will be safe from American conquest.
#5: Dr. Seuss
Although he was sufficiently unprincipled to pass off didactic propaganda (The Lorax and The Butter Battle Book) as children's literature, his contributions outweigh his sins. Children will read Green Eggs and Ham for as long as thoughts are composed in the English language.
#4: The Western
The one truly American genre of movies is the western. Although its American nature appears to derive from the story setting (almost always somewhere in the American west), the western is American because it reflects the basis of American moral reasoning. This principle is that people who agress against others have no place in society and no claim on our sympathies, and that we have the right to restrain, remove or even destroy such people.
Additionally, the western is cool, and has provided, among other things, a much better use for Rossini's the William Tell Overture.
#3: Religious Freedom
Of all nations, America has the largest proportion of people who take the Bible seriously. This is because we have never had a government program to achieve this end. Those nations with official religions have religious police to protect the illusion of piety, or the hollow shells of once-great religious institutions. Every nation that has atheism (or Islam) as the official state position on religion has required goon squads, jails, and torture chambers to make it stick. America has thriving, stagnant, and dying religious establishments, each according to the ability of its members to present a persuasive case. America is neither a Christian nation nor an atheist nation. It is free.
Although some people seem to think otherwise, Christianity at the present time is demonstrating greater resiliency than Islam, for the simple fact that no Muslim dwells in a society where his faith is under attack, whereas most Christians do. Don't believe me?
#2: Monopoly
Monopoly is the greatest board game ever devised by the mind of man. It is the perfect mixture of chance and skill. It was designed by one man, who produced it and sold it on his own after the committee at the game company turned down his idea. It is so great that it has versions for every major US city, many US colleges and universities, many foreign lands, and even some areas of special interest. Its premise is America's premise: Here are the rules, now do your best. Its rules and terminology have entered the vocabulary of every true American. We all know what "Do Not Pass Go" means, and why the hotel on Boardwalk is greatly to be coveted.
#1: Freedom
I will brook neither dissent nor quibbling. America is great because America is free. Everything else that is great about America is a result of the freedoms that Americans enjoy. In evidence, I submit these two facts: