It was a weird week to become an American. I was sworn in on Tuesday, in the federal courthouse in D.C. on Constitution Avenue, as a financial crisis entirely of the country's own making was inspiring descriptions like "armageddon" and "apocalypse."

As I was getting ready to leave my house that morning NPR was discussing the proposed $700 billion bailout of the Wall Street douchebags who got us into this mess in the first place (NPR's language was a bit more genteel) — and the fact that the debt will fall to the current generation of young Americans.

Huh, that'll officially include me now, I thought. And: I wonder if this was such a good idea after all.

Not that I would have been any less liable for taxes as long as I remained a permanent resident. And not that I would have changed my mind, really, for anything.

Which I had to stop and think about a bit, considering that it wasn't just a weird week to become an American — it was a weird year, a weird near-decade, in fact. Americans haven't had a lot to be proud of lately — insert list of failed occupations and human rights violations here — and this economic meltdown brought on by rank greed and regulatory incompetence isn't really helping Brand USA.

So why continue to bet on America, become a member of a club fewer and fewer people appear to want to join?

A few reasons.

First, it's got good bones. Have you read the Constitution lately? At the swearing-in ceremony, we all got a little miniature booklet version of it, and I ended up reading the whole thing while waiting for everything to get started. Not a large feat — it takes less than 10 minutes to get through, because the foundations of a 200+ year government that has inspired systems of self-governance the world over is almost implausibly brief. And each time I read it I am knocked over by how fundamentally sane it is. A government based on such good human common sense, you think, is a keeper.

Second reason to bet on America: because the temporary crap is just that. Temporary. Markets right themselves. Voters begin to pay attention. Bums get kicked out of office (eventually). Remember how fundamentally sound everything was just 10 years ago? Remember when domestic crime was, like, the biggest problem we could think of? Weren't we quaint?

My point, I suppose, is that we could be that quaint again. We could allow an intern sex scandal to dominate the news cycle for months, because nothing of greater import is really going on. (Those were the days!) America, like a river, is always on the move, so you can't count on anything staying as it is, good or ill, for very long.

Thus it is with the financial crisis. The "Greed is Good" i-banker culture didn't even exist 25 years ago. For the young-ish among us it only seems like an immovable fixture because it's been in place for the majority of our lifetimes. But it hasn't always been there, and it won't always stick around. America will roll on, whatever happens.