celebrating america

requires that we remember america

this fourth of july as we celebrate amercia, let us first remember america.

america is not a country. it is not a government. it is not a flag.

america is an idea.

america is a dream.

and most importantly, america is the will and the fortitude to bring that dream to life.

america is the notion, however imperfectly put into past practice, that all humans are created equal and possessed of inalienable rights to personal liberty and agency that they may pursue happiness.

it is no guarantee of catching happiness. it is no thumb in the scale to take the happiness of some and lavish it upon others at the whim of the demos. it is and was always intended to be explicit protection from this pernicious practice. the liberty and property of others does not stop where the desire for dominion and unearned lucre of others begins.

america rests in the idea that the rights of the individual stand paramount to the state and that just governments secure their power from the consent of the governed. not from nukes and f-15’s. not from police states and tax men. from consent.

espouse such ideas today and one gets accused of anarchism, but these were, in no uncertain terms, the tenets of our founding. their imperfect past application does not change that one whit. the idea is as valid today as it was 245 years ago.

it is the same dream that brought together the world’s best and brightest, disaffected and ambitious alike, into the grand experiment of government not just by the people for the people, but government whose literal axis mundi was to elevate the individual above the state, truly a citizen, no longer a subject.

we abandon this idea at our own great peril.

we unmake the melting pot of true american exceptionalism rooted in the prelation of its people at our own great peril.

to choose ever more rarified division over ever more perfect union is not america. it is the antithesis of america.

so let us not go that way. let us choose the higher road, the nobler path, the path of aspiration and virtue and liberty both for ourselves and our posterity.

it is for that reason we established this republic.

it was to chase a dream.

remember this dream of america and the future is bright.

the city on a hill is not built by or for those timorous of their own freedom nor that of their fellows. it is built of courage. it is built of conviction.

celebrate that, and america will follow.

happy 4th all.