Fourth of July Message
One of many reflections on America’s 250th Anniversary
Two hundred fifty years ago, a bold group of men decided to break away from the most powerful empire in the world. Their reason was simple: they wanted to live their lives the way they intended, not how it was dictated to them. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted a document drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson, working alongside a five-man committee that included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. For the first time in human history, the inherent rights of mankind were declared in writing, with the explicit intention of building a government founded on those principles. That bold proclamation set in motion a movement that did not just create a new country; it helped create a new world.
The men who crafted this document were not perfect. In fact, they were deeply flawed. They understood that their own words carried a sense of hypocrisy, since many of them enslaved other human beings. But their living up to their verbiage was never the point. The point was to create a nation where their descendants could strive toward those lofty goals. Their backgrounds, desires, and motivations varied but they agreed that whatever course they took, they would take it together, and that they alone would chart it. Nearly a century later, Frederick Douglass would give voice to that unresolved tension in his 1852 address "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?", forcing the nation to reckon honestly with the distance between its founding words and its founding practices; a reckoning that, in many ways, continues today.
The founding of the United States has never been about creating a perfect union; it has always been about the pursuit of one. As mankind has reached out and literally touched the heavens, our ideas, values, and philosophies have changed. What has not changed is America's core commitment to self-determination; the right of a people to govern how they live. As our nation has aged, the rights once reserved for landowning white men have rightfully expanded to all citizens within its jurisdiction, through amendments, struggle, and generations of citizens insisting the promise be kept.
The truest measure of America's founding is simple: that each generation of its citizens becomes the proper torch-bearer of an idea. A nation, in Lincoln's words at Gettysburg, "of the people, by the people, for the people." Not one individual. Not a group of oligarchs. But the average, everyday American, regardless of background, creed, color, gender, or identity. Because that is what freedom truly is — the ability to live your life the way you choose, and to pursue happiness on your own terms.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Please take a moment today to reflect on where we've been, and where we still intend to go.
I know I will be vilified for this comment, however: “America” was never what it was hyped to be. Beginning with slavery and the slaughter of Native Americans coupled with the plunder of an entire continent it was founded on bigotry, greed and cruelty (sadly, elements of the human condition).
The last truly heroic grand effort and accomplishment by the U.S. that fits the image was World War II. The problem is Americans have been brainwashed to believe they are “Number 1 !” which is so very far from the truth in so very many ways.
If only education in the U.S. wasn’t so dismal students might receive a more accurate and realistic account of history. But, you know, Texas uses books that describe the slaves as “immigrant labor”.
If one really wants to be proud of what so many Americans can do, they need to make a visit to the American Cemetery and D-Day Museum at the Normandy beaches. We take all our visitors there. They are always stunned to silence and we are always in tears; especially this last visit thinking of how the poseurs trump and hegseth dishonor and disgrace those who fought and died here.
Such a deep soul and so profoundly articulate. Bobby, you continue to inspire and enlighten me. Thank you for your commitment to our constitution and to the people in this country.