Here’s a wonderful column from Canadian journalist Michael Coren, sick and tired of hypocritical America-bashing: God bless America.

I’ve had enough of certain risible Canadians inflating themselves by claiming superiority over their southern neighbours.

I’m tired of the America-bashing from mediocrities the world over, and the blaming of every conceivable problem on Washington.

The last straw was, in itself, not particularly significant. It was when cyclist Lance Armstrong was spat at during the Tour de France. Spat at because he is an American.

We do not know his politics, but his girlfriend, Sheryl Crow, is an opponent of George Bush. That didn’t matter. The man was American and thus worthy of disdain.

So, almost three years later, I say it again: God bless America.

For leaving half a million men on the battlefields of Africa, Asia and Europe during the Second World War, a conflict the United States could easily have sat out. For effectively forcing Japan to declare war and thus joining the alliance of light against the gang of darkness. God bless America.

For that farm boy from Nebraska who had never even heard of Normandy or Sicily, who wanted so much to walk back from the hill but continued on, the bullets flying over and around him. For his not turning back. For his determination to do his duty and for his dedication to freedom. God bless America.

For being prepared to rip the country apart in a bloody spasm of civil war because, however delayed and reluctant in some quarters, the leaders and people knew that slavery was wrong. For seeing the future dawn when others could only see the enveloping night. God Bless America.

For Lincoln and Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Truman, Kennedy and Franklin, Jefferson and Adams. For Mark Twain and John Steinbeck, Henry James and Scott Fitzgerald, Melville and Whitman. God bless America.

Read it all.