Commentary -- The 4th of July

I’m a Yankee Doodle dandy, Yankee Doodle do or die…I love to listen to the Dixie strain….

Geraldo Rivera said today that Americans celebrate in a modest way.  Americans do a lot of things in a modest way.  However, our national siblings, the current riotous mob are not modest in any way, seeming to call for the death of America, which we thought was a radical Muslim thing.  We’ve survived worse.

We hope there are enough of us in this country who are grateful enough for the blessings of the United States that we are all able to continue this two and a half century experiment, as we call it.

We get grumpy, critical and disgusted with our elected representatives and worse with our unelected bureaucratic representatives who are there for life because of their federal employees union.

But, in spite of our displeasure, we still love this country.  We love the idea that men can govern themselves, the idea that we are no better, under the law, than our fellow citizens, that we trust in God, the ideas that became America.  We love the idea that opportunity is as big as our imagination, where we can do whatever we are big enough to do, as long as we do no harm to others.

Then along comes the fourth day of July, when we all, on the same day, remember together when it all started, 1776 A.D.  Two hundred and forty-four years ago.  This is a day for parades and fireworks, for hot dogs and potato salad, or whatever favorite summer backyard food.  And in the back of our mind we remember the reason better than we remember the reason for Labor Day or Memorial Day or Columbus Day or Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  And well, we should, because today we are at least vaguely aware of the greatest nation the world has ever known and we are a part of it.

We see the flag in a certain light and way, we hear the pledge of allegiance, or the National Anthem played or sung the way it should be, and we feel that way in our throat and chest, and we’re a little embarrassed about the moisture in our eye, and we sense a kinship, that we are not the only one.  That’s when we are an American.  And glad of it.

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