What a coup! I get to provide the 4th of July welcome column!
Our country is in a lot of trouble. Public opinion seems highly polarized, and rational discourse is at a premium – damn hard to find, as a matter of fact.
But remember this – the reason this is all so upsetting is, we love our country. If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t argue to so loud and hard. It’s true that there are widely divergent points of view as to the directions the government should take to make the country better, but let’s put this aside for today – take a timeout from the hysteria, the despair, the anger. Shelve the name calling, the accusations, and the rancor for the nation’s celebrated birthday (I say “celebrated” because the nation was not born exactly on July 4th.) Let’s not fight at a birthday party – let’s celebrate together.
This nation has done many terrific things, and changed the course of history. It’s also taken some horrific missteps, and some of those changed history too. Take a look around – on any given day, there is far, FAR more loving happening than hating – hate just makes a better news story.
There will never be a day when nothing bad happens to anyone. There will never be a day when everyone treats everyone nice. There will never be a day when a undeserved tragedy doesn’t befall someone. But, conversely, in every day, a new baby is born, people laugh until their sides ache, someone falls in love and someone sings.
Don’t be ashamed to pause even righteous indignation and take stock of the wonderful things around you. At the heart of it all, this is a wonderful country – I’m not bolting for Canada anytime soon. This is not a knock on Canada though – but I was born in the USA and I love it. And we should all stay involved in the never-ending struggle to make the USA better. But today, nah – I’m just going to applaud the parade, play some music and enjoy my friends and family. We’ll resume the struggle soon enough.
Even John Adams took a day off now and again.
Even John Adams took a day off now and again.
