AMERICA 251???

Without revealing exactly how old I am, I can tell you this, I was around for the bicentennial. LOL… But amid all the fireworks, cookouts, and celebrations, I do have some mixed emotions at 250.

So I can hear Rush’s voice praising the exceptionalism and greatness of this free republic. I remember listening to Reagan’s shining city on a hill speech. And I continue to lean heavily on the true history of this republic which I’ve painstakingly sought out after realizing how wrong I was back in my teens and early 20’s. And make no mistake, I’m convinced that never in the history of mankind has the notion of self governance, freedom and liberty, been as celebrated as it was and is in the United States of America. In fact, I’m not even sure our great Founders understood how consequential the two documents they wrote, and which define this country, really were. The idea that a free people could/would control their government, and not the other way around, was truly an inconceivable and alien concept for the time. Nevertheless, here we are, 250 years later. Now let me tell you why I’m conflicted, and why I have serious concerns about 251 and beyond. 

Please know, that this read is not in any way meant to diminish the significance of the day, or the sacrifices of so many who brought us here. No, by any measure, this is a very special occasion. And as I watched President Trump speak in front of Mount Rushmore last night, my heart swelled with pride and thankfulness for being truly blessed to live in this great country. With that said, I stopped at my local Walmart yesterday afternoon to grab some corn on the cob for the cookout. And as I looked around in the self checkout area my mind wandered. I thought, wow, it’s really busy in here today. Then it came to me. This crowd of pajama clad, slipper wearing folks weren’t grabbing those last minute 250 supplies for the celebration, but rather they were flashing those EBT cards that had just been populated with this months tax payer funded dollars. Now please don’t misinterpret my comments as hateful, as I’m not speaking to the mother with young ones in tow whose dirt bag daddy flew the coop and left her to fend for herself. But come on folks, I was surrounded by obese people who mostly looked as though they’d just rolled out of the sack, and nobody but nobody in my general vicinity was speaking English. I wondered to myself, is this what the Founding Fathers envisioned when they penned, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? Is this what so much blood and treasure was given for? Is this America 250? To be honest, it looked more like life, liberty and the pursuit of free sh*t. Sorry…

Coming home to write this I went even deeper. “Teen takeovers”, violent crime, waste, fraud and abuse at the highest political levels, judges legislating from the bench, mail in ballots, boys in girls bathrooms, the death of common sense, communism??? Really, we’re actually talking about communism, an ideology responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of human beings??? Heck, I could go on and on. Is this freedom? Is this what so many gave their last full measure for? Is this what we’re celebrating. Listen, I know it isn’t. I know we’re celebrating the experiment, the idea. I know it’s about choosing our way forward as a society. And I know decent Americans far outnumber the commies who willingly seek their own demise. Go figure… But I also know, that if we ignore the proverbial elephant in the room, (history), it will eventually crush us. “Facts are stubborn things”. But they are still facts, and if we hide from those facts, it’s always at our own peril. 

So as we acknowledge 250 years of this great experiment, an ideology that in real practice has done more for the human condition than any other in all history, I need for y’all to think about something. A man who openly espouses his hatred of his fellow man because he/she is of a different faith, and whose wife celebrated the mass murder of over 1200 innocents, a man who hasn’t worked an honest day in his life but rather lives off of his families money, then lies about it, a man whose entire (short) political career has amounted to absolutely zero in terms benefiting hard working Americans, a man who wants to close prisons and replace police officers with social workers, a man who is single handedly driving small businesses from his city, (yes those businesses you work for), and frankly, a man with a cheesy smile and who wasn’t even born in this country, was elected mayor of what was once the greatest city in the world. My point you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s the word “elected” that I want you to meditate on…

You see my fellow patriots, America “251” and beyond is up to us. I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. Ben Franklin said to Elizabeth Willing Powel on the steps of Independence Hall in 1787, when she asked him what the Constitutional Convention had given the people, and he responded, “A republic madam, if you can keep it”.  

So Happy 250th Birthday America. Let us not forget why we are here. Let us not shrink from the moment, and let us teach our children of America’s true history and exceptionalism, of its legacy, and of our God given freedom and liberty. Make them understand, that while no nation is perfect, this one is unique, in that those who framed it understood that it did not come from them. I couldn’t. It wasn’t simply land or brick and mortar. It wasn’t just shedding the chains of a tyrant king. It wasn’t just about tea and taxes. It was and is what President Lincoln would say some 87 years later, surrounded by the graves of Americans who fought one another over it in this nations bloodiest conflict, that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”, shouldn’t perish from the earth. 

God Bless you all, and GOD PLEASE CONTINUE TO BLESS these United States of America!