God Bless America

It might seem as if we’ve hit the wall, two people running for president with the backing of the two major political parties whom the majority of Americans do not, and cannot, support. Does this spell the end of the American experiment? So many young people believe we’re doomed and see nothing ahead of us but misery. They criticize and condemn America at every turn. They find horrors no matter what we do or don’t do, as if the nation is so inherently corrupt and evil that there is no path that doesn’t lead to perdition.

I believe in America and Americans. I believe that we can and will overcome the current state of affairs, and thrive. I believe that we are a great nation, and like all great nations, are tested from time to time to prove that we are worthy of being called exceptional. If it were up to the doomsayers, we would fail the test, but it is not up to them, but all of us who wake up each morning with the promise of a new day, filled with the possibilities for success and joy.

Not being a religious person, I don’t invoke the word “god” so much as a deity of any flavor, but as a concept that there is something greater, more important, than any one of our individual desires or grievances. There was much to admire in President John F. Kennedy’s exhortation to a nation, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

We’ve lost that sense of working together for a greater good, preferring instead to demand others use our preferred pronouns or be forced to deny reality to avoid any potential offense, or that anyone speaking a language other than English, praying to a god other than Jesus, having darker skin or a “foreign name,” is somehow less worthy of being as much of an American as we believe ourselves to be.

If we are to survive the moment, we must overcome our petty differences and put the nation ahead of our individual peccadilloes. On this date in 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

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.

God bless America. We are a great nation, and we will overcome our divisions to be an even greater nation because that’s who we are. All of us. Together. If that’s what we want, we will achieve it.

16 thoughts on “God Bless America”

  1. KP

    Lol! Boss, you need to get out more! That sounded like a real Boomer rant by someone who has no idea who actually runs America, and its not the President!

    You are looking at a country that slowly became a welfare state, and like all the others, it is collapsing. You can’t keep on expanding Govt, stealing from the productive and giving to the parasites, you can’t go on printing money instead of creating wealth, and you can’t go on living on the hogs back without a struggle and thinking you own the world. Britain fell from that place. Spain, Portugal, right back to the Romans. Empires are built by struggle, then they succeed, cruise, become corrupt and then crash!

    What do you think your President and his son were doing in Ukraine? Making America Great Again?

    I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but the America you want to see rise again last rose in the 1950s, and has become more corrupt and megalomaniac since then. Biden or Harris or Obama’s Mrs, it won’t matter, and Trump won’t be allowed to win, they’ll stuff the ballot boxes just like last time. Since the 1950s America has changed, and the last 30years of ” your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” don’t share your values, your ideals, or your culture.

    The world belongs to the countries East of Europe for the next century or two, and if you want to survive it you should plan to include those up and coming empires, not go down fighting and take as many people with you as you can.

    2. Nancy

      “Parasites ?” This is, indeed, one of the problems. When human beings are flagrantly called parasites just because they are not up to your standards, then we see the conditions that we see currently from those who think that no one else should exist.

  4. jfjoyner3

    Love the optimism!

    A Baptist pastor I know preached a sermon that touched upon his prayers for his 5 children.

    “I used to pray for them to be happy. Then I realized my prayer was misguided. Now I pray for them to be aware. Aware of the needs of others. Aware of the blessings of life. Aware of evil and injustice. Aware of themselves. I pray for them to be always aware.” He was preaching a very un-Baptist idea: a belief his children would respond naturally with humility and care. (Kinda goes against the belief in a fallen nature.)

    You referred to our petty differences. I’ll go with the secondary definition (small-minded, mean, ungenerous, spiteful) and add that too many of us have let our petty differences make us act as petty people. Lately it seems there is an epidemic of pettiness in the US of A. Some of it has been really harmful. Our two most prominent politicians have said and done a lot of petty things. Their differences are not petty (1st def) but certainly they are two very petty (2nd def!!) Americans.

    As this plague of pettiness infects the U.S. of A, there’s not much that can stop it other than an outbreak of awareness. (If I were more religious, I might call it an awakening, but I’ll stick with awareness.) Whatever good may reside within each of us will never be released to “do unto others” so long as our petty differences remain the focus of our deranged thoughts.

    I’m thankful for SJ helping me to be aware. My mind is a little less deranged on this 4th of July!

  6. L. Phillips

    A roofing crew just pulled up across the road to continue re-roofing a neighbor’s house. Having worked through many a vacation day, I appreciate their decision and their tenacity. Most are brown of pigment, but the very white boss is there with them. Right now they are all headed up ladders and, I suspect, ragging on one another given the smiles, shoulder punches and occasional laughter I can see from here. I sometimes forget that this is what makes the United States of America I live in work. And that their work, through their taxes, paid for my employment.

    Believe I’ll walk down and see how they would feel about coming up the road for lunch around the grill.

  10. B. McLeod

    To me, one thing seems clear, and that is that we need to hand both of the major parties a defeat by refusing to elect their unfit presidential candidates. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s what we have to do if we ever want them to reform.

  11. Richard Parker

    That’s one of the Great Pictures of All Time! Does anyone know more about the life of this girl?

    No army? No Navy? I have an idea! Let’s declare war on the strongest country in the world.

    When you really think about it . . .

    Happy 4th!

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