My Heart Beats True to the Red, White and Blue
Independence Day is my favorite holiday. It’s been my favorite for as long as I can remember. I love the picnics, the grilling, the fireworks, the seas of red, white and blue, and the singing of patriotic songs. Most of all I love celebrating the greatness of the American experiment; the honoring of sacrifices made by our founding fathers and the generations that followed in building and preserving our great republic.
I love America.
Even when politics and policies don’t always go my way. Even when I feel we have left the path of our founding. I still love America. Because at the heart of our nation lies the cornerstone belief that individuals have the God given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unobstructed by men, governments or any other authoritarian would-be power. One of my favorite quotes about America comes from Hollywood, but it speaks such truth about our Democratic-Republic. In the American President, President Andrew Shepard says:
“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.” You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.”
I love this because it’s true. I may not like or agree with someone’s position, I may even hate it, but our Constitution grants you and I the right to have and express varying viewpoints. It’s what makes our nation so exceptional. We are a macrocosm of ideas that has for decades been an example to freedom loving nations around the world. The idea that common men could set up and run their own nation was foreign before the founding fathers undertook the cause of independence. The obstacles they faced must have seemed insurmountable, but they carried on. They fought, they sacrificed, they were in the minority, and they faced treason charges if they were to lose. Still they signed their names, they joined the militia, they rose to the occasion and they birthed a new nation. A nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” That they are “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Our founding documents breathed life into our government; our founding fathers breathed life into our nation, now it is our turn to ensure that that life continues. I love President Kennedy’s call to action in his inaugural address: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for you country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” Democracy is hard work. It’s a right, but one that comes with tremendous responsibility.
Yes, America has changed in the 200 plus years of her existence, but it’s not our differences that divide us. It’s our inability to see past them. Our forbearers were not identical twins, they had striking differences. However, they were able to work together for the common causes for independence and liberty in order to bring about amazing accomplishments despite incredible odds. Americans are achievers; it’s our national heritage, and its one we should never let die out. So raise the red, white and blue, shine the beacon of freedom, ask yourself ‘what can I do to preserve liberty?’ and celebrate the 4th of July—not just today but every day.
Happy Birthday to the greatest nation ever dreamed up in the minds of exceptionally ordinary men and women!
Images courtesy of Dockside Condominiums and Rick & Melinda Walton
