My American friends and I, just like my friends from other countries, often have arguments about whose country is better. The American argument, though, is usually fairly odd - the inverse of "mine is better than yours" that you'd usually expect.
My American friends trend towards the liberal, even the very liberal. (Not universally, but generally). I am fortunate to have rather a lot of them. The arguments with them, as I say, are usually somewhat odd, because many if not most of them end up arguing that Canada (where I am fortunate enough to live) is a better place to live than the U.S., and that I'm lucky to live here.
And my argument is usually the opposite - that as Americans, they are the lucky ones. (I mean, we're all lucky; this is an argument about degree). Having lived in the United States and fully intending to return there one day, I know well the energy and drive of the United States gives everyday life a greater, keener edge and thrust and drive.
In most countries, chauvinism about one's mother country is taken for granted. In much of the U.S., for sure, that is no exception. American liberals, though, are often (rightly) envious of the social democracies that hold sway in other places. My life in Canada is less fraught with fear over losing my job, less fraught with fear over getting sick or injured, less fraught with fear over me being discriminated against because of my sexuality or my wife and children getting discriminated against because of the colour of their skin. We also spell it "colour", which is undeniably cool.
With Canada Day having just passed on Tuesday, I was as in most years sent a number of "happy birthday" wishes by my American friends and relations, many of whom passed on their envy over those things. Americans who visit me in Canada often remark that we are "lucky".
But the fortune, my American brothers and sisters, is not ours. The greatest miracle, the greatest and boldest experiment, has always been yours.
I speak not merely of the great sheltering wing of the American eagle that allows its allies to sleep easier knowing that, so long as we remain the best of friends, you've got our backs militarily and diplomatically. I speak instead of the bold experiment of liberalism that sparked the 232 years of modern freedom, an experiment that began on another Fourth of July with those phrases that ring throughout the history of our world with a moral clarity and certainty that has inspired billions.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It is arguably the greatest, most significant, and most portentous blow for human freedom in the history of the world. Popular revolutions and great wars and struggles everywhere, from France in the 1780s to Burma or Russia or a hundred other places today, have invoked those phrases as men and women have fought, organized, and died for their rights and their free futures.
And you share in the bounty of that great day even today. In my country and elsewhere we may have social development that makes life better for all, but in your country that relentless striving for individual freedom remains strongest. It defines who each of you are, and makes you better (and indeed more interesting) for it.
It is not an easy boon to be born and to live in the shadow of the eagle. Life in America is not for the weak of heart, for the American eagle like the North American continent we share is red in tooth and claw, and it can be a daily struggle to preserve, protect and defend those rights. Liberals in the United States must always fight a rearguard action against imperialism, against rapacity. But - and this is the great thing - you can win. And when you win (as you will in November) you win for all of us.
You, unique among all peoples, are able to be a light to the world. America, for all the flaws of the government and executive that directs its acts in these dark times, remains a great bulwark against madness. It is only its liberals and their fights that keep it so. I envy you.
Now go, and be free! Thank you.