Today is Independence Day in the USA, the 4th of July, the day we celebrate our nation declaring its independence from the British Empire which created the colonies which would form this country. And like the families which we are born into or create over time, nearly all of us love our country, but we are also aware that this laboratory of liberty and democracy is an ever-evolving work in progress, even if some people would claim its infallibility and claim those who point out its failings are unpatriotic or worse yet, enemies of this country.
The founding fathers of our nation declared "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence. And while that noble phrase has been the foundation of our democracy, we'd be remiss to forget that they called native Americans a bunch of savages in the very same document later on, nor forget that they didn't feel the same sense of nobility towards African Americans or women, as women had few rights and some of the founding fathers owned slaves.
Yet just as our own families grow up and evolve over time, sometimes brilliantly, other times painfully, our nation evolved likewise. But just because we love our families and our country unconditionally, that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't point out their flaws and ask for improvement. Many of our parents, spouses or children sometimes exhibit annoying, disturbing, or even aggravating tendencies which embarrass us. Some of us have parents who harbor racist, sexist or homophobic views while others have family members who spend way too much money, party too hard, or exhibit self-destructive addictive tendencies we wish they would stop. Our nation is exactly the same way. We struggled with slavery, women's rights, the original gilded age of economic inequality, Jim Crow, and the excesses of the disco era which led to AIDS and the fruitless war on drugs. Even today, we argue over how to spend the nation's money, whether gays should have the right to marry, and whether we should be fighting wars of choice overseas. But through it all, we wait patiently for our country to acknowledge its imperfections and make appropriate changes.
Those who would question our love of this country, especially those on the right, would claim that showing our nation's imperfections is downright unpatriotic and borders on treason. However, they have a flawed, rose-colored view of our nation that believes we can do no wrong, and that our country is perfect as it is now. Yet while the preamble of the Constitution states "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more prefect union", I believe that statement acknowledges we are not perfect and are always striving to make ourselves better. We love our country not because it is flawless but in spite of its warts and imperfections, yet we are always working to make it a better, happier place. And it is that ever-ending pursuit of happiness which makes me proud to be an American.