I say, "I am proud to be a citizen of a country that enforces all the rights women deserve, including the right to run for the highest office?" Some will object because the clause "enforces all the rights women deserve" is, evidently, not true, not yet. But, suppose I wish to express gratitude for all the progress, thus far, on Equal Rights, insofar as they apply to women, would that be universally accepted and approved?

Perhaps, the problem is the word "Proud" which, to some, implies participation. A soldier is rightly proud of a medal earned that cost her a leg. A mother is "proud" of a son's "A" in English but she directly did little on the efforts required. Some are most proud of their "blood-heritage" and fail to notice that they had nothing to do with that, it's an "accident of birth" -at best. Some claim it was preordined since the beginning of time but let's ignore that, it opens too many historical wounds, remember the "Crusades"? St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the definition of a "Just War" which ended the Crusades; some "words" do matter, at least in the Summa Theologica and other Great Books.

Only the comatose are unappreciative of "words", even in this case, two were recently restored to awareness solely by words from a dear one (a father, in Pennsylvania, and a wife, in Poland) every day, for 19 years!

Are you "proud" NOT being hit by a car or lightning? Not eating something recalled by the FDA? Or, are you "grateful" to avoid these misfortunes? I question my right to be "proud" for something you did, and viceversa, though we both may and ought to be grateful for the help of others. Perhaps, an expression of gratitude by a lawyer, graduated from a prestigious school, who is proud of our country, for whatever small step in our endless progress to Civility is thought, by her, to deserve Pride, will elicit this response: "Thank God Almighty, we are now free at last, free at last, for the first time, to take the next step" and be proud we did, also, if and when we do, be "grateful" to be alive to see that day.