I wonder if many realize the United States of America is the only country ever (including ancient and modern-day Israel) to be founded on an idea, not an ethnicity. This idea is best summarized in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence where our Founders boldly proclaimed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” [2] (For everyone).
This single sentence is what makes America exceptional. It is what makes her beautiful. It is what makes her praiseworthy. There are those that wish to tear down and change all our country has endured for 250 years. Is America perfect? Absolutely not. But the founding fathers were smart enough to form a document that allows the people to change our country for the better, not to tear it up and start over with socialists, Marxist ideas that have never worked anywhere in the history of mankind.
Many may talk about the lofty virtues of human nature, but there is something in human nature that will mockingly laugh in the face of every principle you have. If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness, something downright hateful and wrong, in human beings, when it attacks your life, instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it and say that it is of no use to battle against it.
Recently Congresswoman Cori Bush was quoted saying: “When they say that the Fourth of July is about American freedom, remember this: the freedom they’re referring to is for white people. This land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free.”
Congresswoman Cori Bush, I would like to remind you that a white president and 400,000 white men shed their blood in the Civil War so you could hold the position you now hold. Your statement seems a little ungrateful for the progress this country has made toward Black Americans. We’ve had a Black president, a Black judge in the Supreme Court and we now have a Black vice president, which seems to be pretty free to me.
We can be upset with those who criticize our nation, its founding, its progress and its flag.
E.J. Dionne Jr. writes in the Washington Post, “Maybe the best reason to love the United States is that it’s a place where people are free not to love it.” But we should also note this fact: Unlike much of the world, we live in a nation where we are so free that we are free to criticize our nation, our leaders, and each other.
Is America perfect? Do we have to improve? Absolutely, but I wouldn’t trade another place for a country where all citizens can come together and make those changes that are necessary to make America even greater than it is. There’s a story about a time Socrates was sitting beside a river when a young man asked him how to find wisdom. Socrates grabbed the man by the neck and thrust his head under the water. He held him there until it was nearly too late, then pulled him back to shore. As the young man sputtered and gasped for air, Socrates told him, “When you want wisdom as much as you wanted air, you shall have it.”
May we all want fairness, and freedom for all as much as that young man wanted air, because we as Americans will have it. God Bless America.
