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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Friday, 04 July 2008 |
[This was originally in To The Point for July 4, 2004.
This is the version for 2008. We at To The Point wish all of you an
exceedingly happy Fourth of July.]
July 4th is Freedom's Birthday. My suggestion is, amidst the fireworks and
barbeques and flag-waving fun - all of which are great - that you take the time
to feel good about America.
Put aside your worries and concerns, your frustrations and fears about what's
wrong with America. For one day, forget the negative - put it all in a zip-lock
bag, hide it in the back of the freezer, and pretend it doesn't exist.
One reason is that, for all your worries about America's culture and morality,
you and all your fellow conservatives can feel good about your
country. Liberals can't. One of the defining characteristics of leftie-liberals
is an inability to feel truly proud of their country - proud to the bone.
You cannot be a liberal without feeling apologetic and embarrassed over being
an American. You cannot be a conservative without lacking any such
embarrassment or compulsion to apologize at all.
Being an American is simply the coolest thing on earth. Wherever I have
traveled in the world - it's close to 200 countries now - whenever someone asks
me, "Where are you from?", it's always such a thrill to answer,
"America - I'm an American."
I'm an American. Say it to yourself. Doesn't it feel fantastic?
It's a feeling liberals can never have.
You travel around the world and you see the remnants of history's great
civilizations. You walk through the preserved wreckage of Rome's Imperial Forum
or the Acropolis of Ancient Athens and you wonder -- what was it really like to
be here when these civilizations were at their peak? You can do that today in
Washington DC -- or your hometown.
We Americans are privileged to live in one of history's supreme moments. We
Americans are participants in one of history's greatest civilizations in its
prime.
Someday in some future epoch, history will have moved on, and there will be
distant centuries between that time and the American Era. People will then look
upon America as we do upon ancient Egypt or Greece, and will do so with same
wonder and awe.
I suggest you look upon America with that wonder and awe now.
There is so much to love about our country, so much to feel good about. Despite
all the indecency that can drive you crazy -- and we're forgetting about all of
that for the time being, right? -- there is so much decency and moral goodness
in America that it just takes your breath away.
America is the most moral and humanitarian nation ever to exist.
The incomparable gifts America has freely given the world -- of the principles
of the Declaration of Independence, of proclaiming that all human beings have a
moral right to their own personal happiness, of capitalist wealth and
scientific progress throughout the world, of sacrificing oceans of blood to end
Nazi and Tojo tyranny, of oceans of treasure to assist other countries and
foreign peoples, of ridding the world of the curse of the Soviet Union, on and
on and on -- are incalculable.
Today we get to celebrate America's moral decency. We get to revel in
America's historical greatness. For those who out of envy of America
resent that greatness, or who out of a fear of those who envy America can't
admit that moral decency, tough scatology. It's their misfortune, not
ours.
Today, I want you to have a fearless Fourth of July. You need have no
fear for America. Rest assured that America's fundamental goodness will triumph
- yes, even this coming November. The time of our culture's moral
regeneration is not far off. There is so much to feel good about being
American. There is so much to celebrate on Freedom's Birthday.
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