America is an idea.
She is the belief that “all men are created equal”. She is the tenet that “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”. She is the unwavering precept “that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”.
Have the men and women of this nation always lived up to the ideals expressed? Hardly.
Have those ideals, at times, been contorted to suit the whimsy of terrible men? Of course.
Have wicked men cynically used those ideals to further their aims? Undoubtedly.
But America’s failings do not abrogate the ideals expressed in that document nor do they diminish the words therein. You see, America is a process; she is the promise that those who believe in her will always strive to reach those ideals - even if sometimes they fail. It is that promise that forms the basis of who and what we are as a people.
There are those who, it seems, want to return to the rule of an un-elected King — but only insofar as that monarch is one with whom they find compatible belief and goal. They are shortsighted. They forget that power evolves and what they applaud today, they will decry tomorrow.
Some blame America for the ills of the world. Some demean her. Some even curse her. But her promise remains. - even unto them.
God bless America and Happy Independence Day.
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