As America prepares for celebrating our Independence Day tomorrow, it’s worth a small investment of time for each of us to remember what this day is really about - how it began with the belief and action that has resulted in where and what we are today. Are we perfect? No. But we’re the best thing going on Earth.
Americans are on that journey to become better. This purpose is in the first sentence of our Constitution. “..to form a more perfect Union,…”. It is our desired outcome as fellow citizens. It gets bruised and battered. Even burned. But it works.
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 Preamble, Constitution of the United States
Take pride in who and what we are today. Americans. There are so many people in the world that would and do risk everything for this title. There are millions of us that that have taken the oath to protect our way of life. There are those who never grew old defending their fellow warriors, families, homes, and way of life. Each day there are people working to make their lives and communicates around us - in ways big and small. It can be easy to forget, but freedom is never guaranteed.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
President Ronald Reagan
Is that better encapsulated in any document other than the Declaration of Independence? In this document the concepts and philosophies are written for all to see. Equality. Unalienable Rights. Life. Liberty. Pursuit of Happiness. Consent of the governed.
Let these beliefs be your armor against doubt sewn by those who wish to advance their own welfare and advantage over our country. At least once a year, turn off the cruise control that is daily life and read not only that Preamble of our constitution, but also the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. It frames opportunity for each and every one of us. This is our potential’s pathway to prosperity. As Americans, separately and united.
Declaration of Independence (First two paragraphs)
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript