Fireworks in Washington DC from the Truman Balcony of the White House on July 4th, 1976 to celebrate America’s bicentennial. (Credit: National Archives)
America turns 250.
In concept, America is the world’s greatest high school party. It’s a place where everyone from every social class, culture, clique, and idea mixes and mingles without it feeling wrong at all. Everyone brings something to the table, everyone gets to try new things, and the idea is for everyone to have a good time.
This nation was founded with the idea that it would be a nation of immigrants. A place where people can come from wherever to build a new life with the freedom to build it as they please. A nation made up of countless different cultures each bringing something new to the table. The reason people say that they’re Italian or Greek or Egyptian or Chinese here is not because they are trying to claim to be true members of those particular nations and civilizations, because it was an easy shorthand to say “Italian American” or “Greek American” and so on. It became a way to say where your family came to this country from and what you were bringing to the multicolor tapestry woven into the stars and stripes.
On his last full day as President, Ronald Reagan gave a speech in the State Dining Room of the White House. In this speech, he quoted a letter which was sent to him, conveying the author’s words, “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.” This nation’s diversity is its strength. The wealth of perspectives afforded to the nation by its own citizens is the reason why America helped lead the world for decades.
The original sin is the systematic extermination of the indigenous populations by the colonial enterprises of the Old World, and any nation which formed here should have been in partnership with the natives. However, conquering and pillaging was the way of the world at that point, and while America has done too little to repay the native peoples for the atrocities committed against them, it is somewhat significant that America led the charge against such actions in developing the new world order after World War II ended. A nation not yet two-hundred years old (Which is infantile for a civilization) could look at its own past sins and say, “We cannot and should not, as a global civilization, allow this to happen again” is a remarkable thing in an age where half the wars were caused by one party or another trying to settle centuries-old grudges again and again and again.
Yet, America has also failed in that lofty goal as it has failed in all of its goals. Time and time again. It is a nation of imperfection, ugliness, of heinous crimes. It is a sad hypocrisy of history that the man who wrote, “All men are created equal” as a founding principal of a nation himself owned slaves, and that it continues to be a sad hypocrisy where the supposed “greatest nation on earth” has repeatedly destroyed the idea of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ for others by exerting its will and created second and third class citizens of its own birthright citizens, to say nothing how it slammed the door shut in the faces of new generations of people that are attempting to become Americans the same way many of us and our family came to call this country home.
When the Constitution was ratified in 1789, Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government the Second Continental Congress had given to the nation. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
“If you can keep it.”
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were not written as a definitive declarations of a better world, but as challenges to a new nation that a “more perfect union” could be built with the willingness and determination of “we the people.” America has always strived for something magnificent built by its people for its people if and only if the people kept working on it. America is the world’s greatest unfinished building; a perpetual Sagrada Família. The idea for America to ever reach a plateau should be unthinkable because America should always reach to create a better society and become a greater nation for all its people. The pursuit of creating a society around life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for everyone regardless of identity or creed is the creation of a utopia. It is literally impossible to create a perfect society, but it is still worthwhile to try.
The ideal America reckons with its past and present sins and tries to live up to its ideals. To put country before personal ideology, to look for wins for everyone not just your own tribe, but for everyone in the nation. Where dominance by twisting holy scripture, targeting vulnerable populations out of petty malice and ignorant hatred, and carrying water for a new breed of aristocracy would be unheard of. America is not a nation of kings and emperors. When George Washington was elected as the first leader under the Constitution, [The first leader of the nation was actually John Hanson under the Articles of Confederation] there arose a serious debate over what his title should be. It was decided that the then-modest title of “President” aptly described the position which Washington would hold. His office held a title which rejected the notions of royalty, aristocracy, the divine right of kings to rule, and the loftiness of other world leaders. The idea that someone would be president of a nation the same way someone would be president of their local chapter of a silversmith’s guild was the perfect style for an office meant to be occupied by a true servant of the people.
This nation was founded on the idea that no one person was above the others. The President was supposed to be elected for the people by the people yet is subject to the electoral college. The members of Congress, designed to create legislation and check the President’s authority, were elected by the people. Except Senators were not directly elected by the voters until the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Political parties, lobbying, special interest groups, and the myriad of ways to buy and sell political power as though it were another commodity have all grown and taken ugly root in the 250 years since the Founding Fathers sat in a room in Philadelphia and said that the thirteen colonies would no longer be subjects of King George III. Declaring independence was not their first choice. They wanted a reconciliation with the King over the disagreements on how the American colonies were run and their role in the British Empire. Only when the King staunchly refused to discuss any sort of reformation did Thomas Jefferson sit down with quill and ink to tell the King, on behalf of the colonies, to go jump in a lake.
When forming a new government years after the war had ended and the questions over sovereignty had become clearer, the Founding Fathers decided that no god should have a presence in the new government. Despite being devout Christians themselves, the nation they were building should be one of laws and rationality divorced from all religion even as it protected the citizens’ rights to choose whichever religion they wanted. Again, the sad hypocrisy is that Christianity became a dominant force in the American political world unofficially. But what is past does not determine what must be the future.
Every day since the Declaration of Independence was signed and sent off to King George, America has been challenged by the ideals set forth in its foundational texts. Its messiness and contradictions created fertile ground for a great nation. A system of government that at its basest level allows anyone the freedom of expression and belief. The freedom to make one’s choice for leader without fear of reprisal if their horse loses the race. The freedom to periodically overthrow the government with a pen and a sheet of paper, without a spot of blood in sight. Revolutions seldom ever work. The American Revolution is not accurately named, for it was more of a war of secession than a true revolution. It was the fight to say to a great world power, “We would like the opportunity to do things our way. You can keep the rest of your Empire, we would just no longer like to be part of it.”
The war was the easy part. Afterwards came the problems of reconciling a fractured society, and dealing with the harsh injustices upon which the nation was built: slavery, the treatment of the indigenous civilizations, relationships with its neighbors and friends overseas, keeping women as second class citizens, and so on. None of these problems have reached satisfactory solutions even now. Steps have been taken, and change happens unfortunately slow. A perfect society is the ultimate goal, but it cannot happen overnight. In fact, it cannot happen at all. Yet it is worthy to move towards for Americans of all races, colors, and creeds.
There are people who live here, either by birth or by choice, who believe in the ideals which are touted as the reasons why America is the greatest country in the world. Every American here today owes it to those people, the dreamers, to make great effort in the struggle to build the future of the nation.
Generations of Americans sacrificed their lives in hopes of building a better tomorrow, from those who died for liberty on the fields at Valley Forge, to those at the Battle of Gettysburg who were slain attempting to keep a fractured nation together, to those who went to beat back a great evil from dominating Europe, or to the mountains of Afghanistan to hunt down those responsible for the worst attack this nation has ever seen. And for all of those who volunteered to fight for such worthy causes and were instead sent to die for political ambitions of corrupt, immoral, or clueless leaders committing to actions which had no impact on the safety of the nation.
Every American today owes these people a debt of gratitude, not just in saying “Thank you to our troops” or “We remember those who did…” but in action, in intention, in belief. Every American today owes their position to the generations of Americans who sacrificed in hopes of building a better tomorrow. The civil rights protestors who said that the treatment of people who weren’t white was an abominable crime. The women’s rights protestors who secured women the right to vote and fair pay. The LGBT rights protestors who are fighting to keep children from being carted off to places which will torture them in an attempt to ‘fix’ something that isn’t wrong because they love who they love. It dishonors the sacrifice of all of these groups and all the others who gave for this country out of a deep love of what it could become.
It would be a dishonor to their sacrifices if all the hard work of the American experiment up to know was for nothing. Americans can build the America spoken of in poem and song, the shining city on the hill. This country can fulfill the promise inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, and shine the golden lamp beside the golden door, propped wide open for those who dream to be free.
America’s future is not an issue of conservative or liberal, or home state or choice of religion. It is an issue of whether or not the institutions of this nation are worth improving. If recognizing that it is possible to love the United States of America while constantly pushing it to be better. Patriotism isn’t believing that one’s country is wholly perfect, that it cannot be improved, and anyone who says otherwise is an enemy. Patriotism is fighting tooth and nail for the country one loves to be the best it can purely because they love it. Patriotism is not only recognizing the nation’s shortcomings, but spurring that nation to fix them and achieve its potential out of love for what the nation can be.
“Patriotism can be turned to good or ill purposes, but in most people it never dies. It’s a persistent attachment, like loyalty to your family, a source of meaning and togetherness, strongest when it’s hardly conscious. National loyalty is an attachment to what makes your country yours, distinct from the rest, even when you can’t stand it, even when it breaks your heart. This feeling can’t be wished out of existence. And because people still live their lives in an actual place, and the nation is the largest place with which they can identify—world citizenship is too abstract to be meaningful—patriotic feeling has to be tapped if you want to achieve anything big. If your goal is to slow climate change, or reverse inequality, or stop racism, or rebuild democracy, you will need the national solidarity that comes from patriotism.”
George Packer
This nation, which has stood for two and a half centuries, is too important to surrender to authoritarianism, or cynicism, or fear. There is a foundation, flawed as it may be, upon which a great society can be built. If the people build it. If Americans remember the first words of our Constitution.
We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The words “a more perfect union” describe everything about the American experiment. This is a place where which can always do better. The Preamble of the Constitution is a challenge to America to push forward, to build better, to reach higher, to never give up. We established what that more perfect union is looking towards when we told King George III to kick rocks on July 4th, 1776.
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.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The American Revolutionaries were rebels for daring to challenge the divine right of kings, for daring to imagine a nation founded on the principle of equality, for daring to try an experiment which had not been done in this way before. The Sprit of 76 is the perpetual drive to build a country worthy of the ideals espoused by America’s founders while recognizing their shortcomings.
Everyone should want America to model peace and prosperity for the world. Everyone should want America to fulfill its identity as the world’s great melting pot. Everyone should want every voice in this nation to be heard. Everyone should want all Americans to be able to solve grievances with listening and understanding. Everyone should want to be one nation, indivisible, that is focused on compromise, cooperation, unity, and compassion rather than spite, and division and hatred.
Without unity against the British forces, the Continental Army never would have stood a chance in those dark hours. Yet the spirit of the revolutionaries persisted until the British surrendered at Yorktown and continue through the War of 1812. Through the Civil War, and the Great Depression, and the Second World War, and the threat of nuclear annihilation, and the devastation of terrorism. The storms America faces today can and will be weathered by a nation which believes in the promises scratched out by the Framers that have not yet been fulfilled.
The Godfather opened with one of the best lines in all of cinema, “I believe in America.” America is a nation where the red, white, and blue is waved alongside signs of protest because people believe in America. The American identity and pride in being American does not only belong to one subset of the population, who have universally crowned themselves as ‘true Americans.’ The right to be an American is a right granted to everyone. The United States is the land of opportunity, the home for everyone who weeks to build a better life for themselves and their families.
Patriotism is in short supply these days. Patriotism means loving one’s country to such a degree that criticizing its leaders and its shortcomings feels like an obligation. Constructive criticism is not a demonstration of a lack of love, far from it. Patriotism means taking drastic steps to secure the future of a nation whose ideals have stood as a beacon for generations across the world. Patriotism means criticizing the shortcomings of reaching those ideals, holding the country accountable, and not just pledging ways to do better but actually carrying through. Patriotism means safeguarding the symbols of a nation so that they are not corrupted by nationalists.
Nationalism is the blind adoration of the greatest charlatans. Framing any criticism as being treasonous to the nation at large. Of wishing to crush political opposition to dust for daring to speak up against injustices. For believing, wholeheartedly, that the country can do no wrong and has never done wrong. For politicizing institutions to overthrow democracy. Nationalism is inherently a supremacist attitude, and it has no place in a country which has no criteria as to what makes a ‘real’ American.
America can never be one size fits all. Diversity is what makes America beautiful. The fact that people all over the world choose to come here for the freedoms and opportunities which can be found in this country is a magical thing. However, that comes with its burden: it is the responsibility of every American to build the Great Society the nation claims to be.
The best version of America stands for the values which were set forth in those founding documents. When it reaches, not merely for common ground, but for higher ground. When it speaks about liberty and justice for all, it does its best to make that a reality. When it attempts to protect the rights of its citizens at home and abroad as best it can, and supports freedom and democracy for all nations.
America is imperfect. The wonderful part about the American experience is that the country will never be perfect. No country can ever be perfect. Yet there is a great nobility in striving to live out the values written in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for the first time in the nation’s history. To push for reaching worthy ideals that will remain out of reach is the best way for this generation to create a society for its children better than the one their parents left for them. To invite everyone to the table and surround themselves with people from all walks of life who all get to be American together, with the struggles and triumphs that entails.
The nation today faces great challenges. In many ways, America is flawed, imperfect, troubled nation with a grotesque history. However, there are principles worth fighting for and a legacy worth protecting. Struggle is guaranteed. Failure is certain. Dark storms and even darker nights will come and wreak their havoc. Yet so long as America does not abandon the path, it will prevail.
“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”
President Bill Clinton during his first inaugural address.
Ark of the Lost Angels 
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