The late Charles Kuralt once wrote, “I don’t think it does any harm just once in a while to acknowledge … that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers and criminals.”
Kuralt was reflecting on the tendency of media types to focus on the personality and the unusual. Left uncovered by such a bias are the millions and millions of folk who go about their daily lives doing the best they can. They earn a living. They raise families. They serve their communities. They worship God in their churches.
Most such people never see their names in newspapers. They never earn megadollar salaries. They do not experience ticker-tape parades celebrating their accomplishments. But it is such persons — those who live life trying to do the best they can — that make up the backbone of this great country known as the United States of America.
These are the people who see Old Glory rippling in the wind and swell with a sense of pride. These are the people who understand that the red stripes of the flag, as President Woodrow Wilson said, “are lines of blood, nobly and unselfishly shed by men who loved the liberty of their fellowmen more than they loved their own lives and fortunes.”
These are the people whose sons and daughters, whose brothers and sisters, whose friends and neighbors stand in that nobel heritage today as they place their lives on the line in many distant places around the globe.
These are the people who will celebrate this Fourth of July surrounded by family and friends at picnics or barbecues or other special events. These are the people who will “ooh” and “ah” at the spectacular sparkles of fireworks against the night sky. But sometime during the day, when the notes of “The Star Spangled Banner” drift their way, they will pause, stand straight and remember with patriotic fervor — “I am an American.”
Many have never seen the “amber waves of grain” about which Katharine Lee Bates wrote in “America the Beautiful.” Many have not seen the “purple mountains majesty” that captured Bates’ imagination as she stood atop Pike’s Peak, inspired by the vistas before her to pen the lines to that famous song.
No matter. It is almost as if the whole country belongs to each one of us. Whether one lives by the sea or the snowcapped mountains, on the “fruited plains” or in the rolling woodlands, this is our nation. It belongs to us all. We are proud to be Americans.
Especially are we proud this Fourth of July. The terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, shocked the national consciousness and wounded our individual souls. Seldom in our lifetime had we witnessed such blind hatred, such angry furor.
But such misguided zealots will not overcome the greatness that is our reason for pride in America. Ours is not a patriotism in a piece of real estate, as precious as our place may be. Our commitment is to what America stands for. We believe in freedom for the nation based on freedom for the individual. We believe in the dignity and worth of the individual and in his or her right of self-determination.
America is based on laws equally applicable to all. We believe in equal opportunity, in fair and equitable justice, in the opportunity to work and earn a living wage.
One of our most precious freedoms is religious freedom. Freedom to worship God was the driving force for many of the early settlements in this country. Freedom of religion is still important. In America, neither government nor ecclesiastical power can force one to engage in religious activities. Neither can government nor any other power keep the God-fearing citizen from worshiping as one pleases.
Sometimes America struggles in living out her dreams. Sometimes voices question policies and positions. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower put such times in perspective when he observed, “Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels — men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
Indeed, the freedom to question and dissent is another of the precious freedoms treasured in America. It is not disloyal or unpatriotic. It is part of desiring what is “right” for America. We are never more patriotic than when we desire the right for our country.
Nearly a century and a half before Eisenhower spoke, another president, John Quincy Adams, made that point when he said, “I cannot ask heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. … My toast would be, may our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.”
People — ordinary people — loving God, loving their families, loving their nation. We are not politicians, not celebrities, not criminals, just ordinary people. In tranquil times or turbulent, we seek to live lives reflecting the steady dedication to America and to those things that make her great.
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