INDEPENDENCE DAY 2010

..... So here I am about to celebrate my 86th Fourth of July with a dinner of hot dogs, French fries, and a diet coke, and I always get that burst of patriotism when I see and hear the explosion of fireworks in the evening. But I don't get that feeling when I think of how sparse patriotism appears to be in America at this point in her history; how divided the country is in its perception of what direction we need to be taking on a myriad of difficulties--the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the oil devastating our shores, our divisions on immigration and global warming, and our relationships with foreign countries.

.....This is the only country that deliberately started with a good idea, born in a Revolution and fired by patriotism. Whatever happened to “patriotism”? When President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, instead of evidential patriotic pride that an American was chosen, there appeared much wringing of hands, more gorges rising, more lamentation and dismay, more cringing editorials, more letters to the editor from know-nothings and racists, than any show of patriotism that I could uncover at the time.

…..One would think that we were in an irate foreign country because one of theirs was not chosen. And whatever happened to “…and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea”? Like Petrucchio in “Kiss me Kate” I asked myself, “Where is the life that late I led?” I remember the patriotic fervor that once swept over our country in WWII instead of the rancor that envelops it now. Naval commander Stephen Decatur, in a toast given at a banquet in Norfolk, Virginia said, "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong." Perhaps this is somewhat chauvinistic, so what’s wrong with a little chauvinism now and then? It's merely patriotism taken to the very edge. Only the recent performance of our soccer team in the World Cup seemed to draw together Americans of every persuasion. But that's not good enough.

…..Adlai Stevenson once said that ".....America is more than a geographical fact; it is a political and moral fact, the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality." And Teddy Roosevelt felt that “.....This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.” I hope to live to see that happen by some future Independence Day.