Founders had vision of nation based on individual rights

posted 06:24 PM 07/01
Link this article here.

The Fourth of July celebrates America’s independence! Barbecues and baseball, family and fireworks, parades and protests — everything you love about America and some of the stuff you don’t will be celebrated with gusto around this great nation.

In addition to this national celebration, the Fourth of July is also a time for some reflection — a time for most of us to be thankful we had the good fortune to be born here, and for others to be thankful they made the journey.

We should be extremely thankful because we enjoy a level of freedom unknown in most of the world — or in most of the world’s history. Yet we must remain vigilant in safeguarding our freedoms, even from ourselves.

And we should be thankful for those who have sacrificed to secure those freedoms, whether on the battlefield, the newsroom, the halls of government or the street corner.

We should be thankful we remain a beacon of hope in the world. America continues to take in more immigrants each year than any other country, a testament both to their desire to come here and to our willingness to accept them.

We are a generous nation — both government and private sector. Not all foreign aid may be the best spent dollars, but our humanitarian response is without peer. And when the world needs to take action, it still looks to America for its leadership.

America’s image might be a little tarnished of late, but only in comparison to ourselves and our potential. No one and no nation has yet stepped up to seize the mantel from us.

Indeed, if you had the opportunity to exchange your livelihood for the equivalent in another country, where else would you go?

Yes, things seem a bit bleak these days: an ongoing recession, an unpopular war, an unpopular president, a partisan, gridlocked government. But we made it through two world wars and the Great Depression. We made it through Vietnam, Watergate and the oil crisis. If history is a guide, it will not only get better than it is, it will get better than it was.

So on this Fourth of July, let’s celebrate our national identity. Let’s honor our founding fathers, who had the audacity to imagine a government based on the rights of the individual.

We are 232 years and counting into this great experiment we call the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Ted Holden has worked at Intel Corporation in DuPont for the past 11 years and has settled in Olympia to raise a family. He can be reached at OlyTed@Yahoo.com.

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