Honor America Today - Then Make It Better

It's the Fourth of July, America's birthday. This is the day we celebrate declaring our independence from Great Britain and glorify the Founding Fathers for not only declaring that independence, but also fighting to make it a reality. And I have no problem with that. I am also glad that happened, and I am glad I was born in this country.

But this is also the time that some want to celebrate "American exceptionalism" -- the idea that somehow we are better than other nations because of what the Founding Fathers did back in 1776 (and in 1787, when the Constitution was written). I have always been uncomfortable with this view of America. This was not a perfect country when it was created, and we still aren't living up to the ideals we claim to believe in.

We claim to believe in freedom, and yet when the country was created a large part of the population was living as slaves (and it was even written into the Constitution that these slaves would only count as 3/5 of a person). It would not be until decades after the Constitution was written that slavery would be outlawed, and then another hundred years after that before laws were written to give the descendants of those slaves the same rights as other Americans.

We claim to believe in equal rights, but we are still struggling to guarantee those rights to all of our citizens. When this nation was created, the right to vote was granted only to a small number of citizens -- those who were white, who owned property, and who were male. If you did not meet all of those requirements then you did not have full and equal rights.

It was not until the early part of the Twentieth Century (about a century and a half after the country was created) that women were even given the right to vote in all of the states. And it was not until the 1960s that the right to vote was guaranteed to African-Americans in all states. Even today, gays and lesbians are denied rights in most states that other Americans take for granted.

Too often, right-wingers in this country try to make it sound like our Founding Fathers created a perfect country -- which we have messed up. That is ridiculous. Our Founding Fathers were flawed men who created a deeply flawed country. It is to their credit that they provided a way to change that deeply flawed country by amending the Constitution which governs it. But whether those on the right like it or not, we live today in a freer and more equal country than at any other time in the history of this country -- that is just a fact.

Our Founding Fathers knew they had not created a heaven on Earth. That is why they provided the means for change. And I expect many of them wanted and expected their descendants to make changes to this country -- changes that would fulfill the dreams they had.

I honor our Founding Fathers on this day. But I also honor the many Americans who came after them and made the country even better. But if there is one thing that needs to be realized on this auspicious day, it is that the job of making America even better has not been finished (and in fact may never be). It is our job to build upon what our ancestors have done and make this country better for all Americans -- regardless of race, creed, religion, sex, age, color, or sexual preference.

This is a day when we should remember and honor our past. But it is also a day when we should re-dedicate ourselves to doing our part to making this country better for all its citizens. Failure to do so would dishonor those who came before us.