I blame Petula Clark, really. If Downtown hadn't gripped my four year-old soul, I may have grown up to be a normal, patriotic American. I worshipped Clark at age four. I wanted to be her. According to my aunt Jane, Clark was from some place called England. My grasp on geography wasn't too tight at that age, so in my mind, England was a faraway place full of pretty blonde girls who sang happy songs. I wanted to be a pretty blonde girl and sing happy songs. Somehow, I think I must have believed that if I went to England, I would become one.

Eventually, I realised that the transformation from a brunette with thick glasses and a voice that would make the devil cry to a beautiful blonde with the voice of an angel was never going to happen, but by then it was too late. I had the germ of a notion that there were other places in the world that might be nice places to live – a notion that meant that I was destined to be a Bad American.

Good Americans don't question the essential superiority of America. Many Americans boast that they have no desire to even travel to another country. They believe that it is a sign of patriotism to wallow in ignorance of the rest of the world. Not all Good Americans are quite that patriotic. Some are open to the possibility that there might be other places in the world that are nice to visit. Really open-minded Good Americans think that, if one is quite adventurous, one might even live in another country for a year or two.

Bad Americans not only think that it is possible to be happy in another country, they're open to the possibility that there might be things about other countries that are actually nicer than America. Bad Americans would give up their right to own an assault rifle for the right to see a doctor without taking out a loan. They think that public transport shouldn't just be for people who are too poor to own a car.

Clearly, Clark isn't solely responsible for my failure to become a Good American, so how did it happen? What makes a nice girl from Cowpat Junction, Iowa, decide that a person could be happy living outside the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave? To some extent, it must be just an innate curiosity about the world. As I grew up, I kept developing fascinations with other places.

Watching beautiful, graceful Ludmilla Tourischeva in the 1972 Olympics prompted me to learn about the Soviet Union and that taught me early on that they weren't necessarily my enemy. Adolescence hit and the crush on Björn Borg sent me searching for information about Sweden. The crush on Sweden long outlived the crush on Borg. A novel I read made me want to learn about ancient Persia and that led to an interest in Iran. Exchange students taught me about life in Sweden, Japan, Germany, Norway and Switzerland. They all seemed perfectly happy with their countries. They all seemed to have the same freedoms I did.

That these fascinations were set against a backdrop of the Vietnam war, the Watergate scandal and the fact that there was still a need for the civil rights movement added to my inability to develop the notion that the US was somehow morally superior to other countries.

Travels since my first trip to Europe in 1980 have confirmed my status as a Bad American. I spent two and a half years travelling and living in Britain, Sweden and Germany. In that time, I failed to learn of any freedoms Americans have that other countries don't, apart from that damn freedom to own an assault rifle. As I said, I'd gladly give that one up in exchange for universal healthcare and decent public transport. But then, I would, wouldn't I? I am a Bad American.