God Bless America

Wow! Two serious blogs in row -- what is happening to me?

Yesterday we celebrated I believe the 231st anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from the tyranny of Great Britain, and this great and wonderful country was born.

What a wonderful document our forefathers wrote followed by a Constitution that was equally as brilliant. It would do all of us some good to read both of those every now and then to reaffirm our appreciation and respect for the principles upon which this country was founded and those who risked and gave their lives for our freedoms.

America as a nation is not perfect, but it is a damn sight more so than most. Because of our freedoms some of our citizens do and say things that many of us feel are un-American, but that is the strength of this country because we have the freedom to state what we think is wrong. If you weigh all of the bad against all of the good, the scales are definitely tipped very much to the good side.

I had the experience some 30 years ago of spending some time in Hungary, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. This was before the collapse of the USSR's Iron Curtain. I don't think any of us would have liked to have lived under those conditions. For the most part those and other countries that were under Russian control are free today because of American efforts. We can be and have been a good force in the world as a super power, but our leaders sometimes lose sight of what we should be all about.

American history is full of heroes -- too many to mention -- men and women who fought on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific and other places in the world to secure our and their freedoms from tyranny and oppression. Americans have taken to the streets in this country to arouse a nation to evils that have called for change. Leaders have spoken up in our state legislatures and in Congress against situations of unfairness that needed to be rectified. And we have made many of those changes and have become a better people for it. We still have problems and will continue to have them, but we look to those whom we have elected to have honest and sincere debates. This is where we the people need to become more vocal and insist that debates be held without rancor and meanspiritedness.

We are such a diverse nation -- a nation with people who have roots all over the world -- a nation with people of all political persuations. The diversity has contributed to our greatness. But we are America and we are Americans whatever our heritage -- somehow this must be instilled into our citizenry.

Be proud of America and be proud you are an American, but we all must try and make our voices heard when we see segments of our people trying to make this country something that our forefathers did not envision -- "they done good."

Now that is out of my system, so I can get back to the regular stuff.

Have a great day and God Bless America.