The question is on the lips of many. Some decry our failings and insist they are endemic, and show the decline of our Country's greatness.
They point to our prosperity as evidence of our selfishness.
They point at our innovation and insist that we are lazy and weak.
They insist that in their lives we have never done anything worthy of pride.
Some point to the White House and our president, and decry his failings and decide the America has suffered under his leadership. They accuse him of crimes and demand his oust.
They demonstrate against our Military, and defame them. They falsely accuse them of crimes and atrocities.
They protest in the streets against the war we fight, against our foreign policy, against our leaders, against our culture and against religion.
The take the symbols of our country and deface them in protest.
They write articles and blogs and columns pointing our in glorious prose and detail the sins of our country, past present ad future.
So I ask myself: In the face of so much hatred, disappointment and vile rhetoric, is America Still Great?
You bet your ass it is. The proof is in the protest to start with.
We are virtually unique in the world where so much protest and anti government sentiment can be openly displayed, and not just tolerated, but downright celebrated.
Our Constitution, which continues to thrive despite the naysayers best arguments, protects those who speak against America the loudest.
For every person who speaks about how America has declined in greatness, their very words continue to prove we are still great. All the Journalists that write diatribes against America do so because America values the freedom of dissent.
For those who protest our Military, and slander them, the fact they can do such acts is a testimony to how well our Military has preserved those freedoms.
America is not just a nation, a collection of laws and people, it is also the debate on what constitutes greatness, and it is coil and churn of those ideas.
America is not the boundaries of our states, it is the limitless, boundless world of our ideas and our beliefs.
There are many reasons to love America and to be assured of her greatness. The free market; the free elections; the limitless opportunity for success and prosperity; the myriad cultures and faiths; the determination to be free in the face of all adversity: all of these speak to the greatness of America.
But sometimes I think that the ability to argue about that greatness is our greatest strength.
You see, I am not afraid of debate. I am not afraid of those who take my dearest ideals and trample them in their own ideals. Iron sharpens iron. The strength of our ideals is seen when they are tested. So I am not afraid to defend my ideals.
In fact, I enjoy it. I am passionate about America.
So: Is America Great?
As long as men are free to argue the point it must be.
Take your time today and consider and reflect, then Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate!
Whether you like it or not, we still live in the greatest country in the world.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
I love America more than any other country in this world; and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. ~James Baldwin
America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos. ~Max Lerner, Actions and Passions, 1949
America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them. ~James Michener
When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect. ~Adlai Stevenson
This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope. So it was in the beginning. So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith. ~Lyndon B. Johnson
Posted by guitarplayr at July 04, 2008 12:55 AM | Email This