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America: 246 Years of Freedom
Dear America,
You don’t know me, but I am just a jolly American citizen who believes what you stand for: freedom. I do not profess to know everything, but this much I know, that despite her faults, your history I am proud of you.
I make no attempts to excuse your prior bad behavior, I do understand that you have taken steps to correct those behaviors. I am glad to note that I am not alone. There are people like myself who love those 50 stars, those 13 stripes and that blue background where those stars sit. It gives me goosebumps in knowing that those stars were once 13 stars, survived a war between sister States, two world wars, civil strife, and yet after 246 years, you are still here.
At one time, I was a person who didn’t considered myself an American. I considered myself a “New York-rican.” In other words, a person of Puerto Rican ancestry born here in America, in the city of New York. The concept of myself being an American solely based on where I was a foreign concept to me. Of course, then the summer of 1988 happened, and I read the Declaration of Independence. That’s where everything changed; it was my “ah ha moment.” Since then, I never turned back, I was no longer a New Yorker, or a Puerto Rican-Italian, I was American.
Like many, I a lot in common with other people in similar situations, I love America, I love that awe inspiring document that leftists, socialists and communists in our republic hate. Why? Because that document says to “a candid world” that it is the duty of every able bodied men to fight for freedom, that whenever any government becomes tyrannical, it is the right, and most importantly it is their duty to throw off such government, and form a new government that will secure their liberties, promote domestic tranquility and more importantly guarantee future generations the same blessings of liberty.
In reading the Declaration of Independence of our forefathers, I can not help but be amazed that these imperfect men wrote such a perfect document. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, a man who was the product of the period of European Enlightenment, put it so eloquently, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Yet before the ink was dry on the pens and plumbs of the signers, already there was debate on the nature of the form of government the young nation would have.
The Declaration goes on to say, “absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security,” these immortal words have never been truer to the patriots of today. Equally, satisfying, America was on the brink of losing the war for her freedom, but yet still hung on, and after 8 years of blood work on the battlefield, America won her freedom.
It was 1787, America adopted a new form of government, a republic, a nation of laws. Now it was time for the young nation to put up or shut up about that pesky document called the Declaration of Independence. It was now time for the young nation to follow through on its promise, to be the guarantor of rights, liberties and freedom it fought for. Now it was the high water mark of the young nation, the United States of America, to show “a candid world” its purpose.
I stand true to the notion, what while the functions of government may be and are imperfect, after 246 years of an experiment in self governance, I trust no other form constitution but of our republic. People will mock, and denigrate patriots like myself, and call us racists for loving our republic despite her faults, but these are the same people who use the very same liberties that they claim to hate. I must add, but note to these types of people: hypocrisy much?
A wise man once wrote, “I am a Southerner by birth and a Rebel by choice. As I read and study, I pull for Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet. As I live, I thank Grant, Lincoln, and Democracy.[1]” My response to this quote is, “I am Northerner by birth, and a Rebel by choice. As I read and study, I pull for Washington, von Steuben, Lee, Jackson and Longstreet. As I live, I thank fellow patriots alike for believing in America, and standing by her side even in the darkest of times.”
cycloneous 