A safe, and civil, Fourth
Remember yearround what unites us, and why our great country was founded
Happy 242nd birthday, America! Americans from coast to coast are celebrating that milestone today with fireworks and barbecues.
And despite all the tumult and ugly civil discourse that has enveloped our national dialogue in recent years — and the seemingly eternal tug of war between conservatives and liberals — ours is still the greatest nation on the planet.
We, as Americans, should never forget that people the world over are willing to risk everything to tap into the freedoms and opportunities that we enjoy by virtue of having been born in this country.
No, America is not perfect, by any means. And there are many things that continue to divide us, from our views on immigration to our feelings about guns, Donald Trump and Barack Obama.
But we should all remember there is so much more that unites us — the fundamental belief that all people are created equal, and that everyone is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Ours is the land of the free. We are the heirs of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr. and César Chávez.
Our nation was founded and reconsecrated on a set of ideals that are as relevant, breathtaking and poignant today as when they were written 12 score and two years ago.
Yes, from time to time we stray away from those ideals, but, in the end, we have always found our way back to them, and we have emerged from each crisis even stronger.
It’s hard to imagine the courage it must have taken for our founding fathers to stand up to England’s King George III and to declare independence from his tyrannical government. They risked everything for freedom and for the right to govern themselves in a just manner.
The Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776. Two days later — the day we now celebrate as Independence Day — delegates from all 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence.
Much bloodshed followed, but in the end, our forefathers prevailed, and our fledgling nation took off.
We owe it to our country’s founders to be courageous in fighting for our nation’s values. But we also owe it to them — and to our children and to each other — to strive to treat everyone with dignity and respect, even when we disagree, and to be open to new ideas as we plot the future of our great nation.
In the words of John Winthrop, we are a city upon a hill, and the eyes of the world are upon us.
“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.” — The Declaration of Independence