Since this is the season when we celebrate the Declaration of Independence and our victory over the British Empire (that was the most powerful country in the world at that time), I deem it very appropriate and timely to dedicate my column today in an attempt to consider an issue that is very relevant to our Fourth of July observance.
Like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter, most people who will celebrate the Fourth of July season will do it in a way that does not convey and capture the true meaning or historical significance of the season.
They will go on vacations, have cookouts, reunions of various types, and even firework displays. Regrettably, in their festivities and gatherings, they will give little, if any, effort to express the true and historical significance of the season and why we celebrate our independence during this time of year.
As a patriotic American, I believe that it is very important that every citizen who share in the blessings and bounty of our nation spend some time studying our history and why God, in His providence, has made us perhaps the most powerful and productive country in the history of the world.
We did not just arrive to our place of prominence and ascendancy as a nation by mere chance or happenstance.
There is just no way that a ragtag militia (that primarily consisted of farmers and common people) should have been able to challenge and defeat the most powerful military force in the world.
It borders on idiocy to believe that George Washington and his unschooled (military) staff of officers could have, on their own abilities and initiates, outfoxed the most strategic military minds of their time without the aid of some supernatural and superior intellect and strategist.
Furthermore, we are plunging further into the abyss of absurdity to believe that our founding fathers could, on their own mental capacity, devise a document like the Constitution of the United States of America that is perhaps the greatest document known to man, other than the Scriptures, without the orchestration of the Almighty.
As Americans, we would be wise to remember what got us to the place of being the most powerful and richest country in the history of the world, barring none.
In spite of our flaws and systemic social cancers like racism, income inequality, opioid addition, and quite a few other evils that we are still struggling to overcome as a nation, America is still the land of opportunity and liberty that most people who are fleeing political oppression, religious persecution, abject poverty, and other suppressive evils, desire to migrate to.
We would do well to remember that in spite of the problems we have at our southern borders with migrants from South and Central America, who are desperately trying to enter into our country, that we are a country of immigrants. Technically speaking, only the Native Americans have a right of ancestry and origin to call America home.
Assuredly, African-Americans, whose ancestors were brought here as slaves, can claim some right to belong here as reparation for the inhumanity and injustice that was imposed and enforced for over two hundred years.
In regard to the very perplexing situations we have with the horde of immigrants who are gathering at our Southern borders, I have mixed emotions about these desperate and destitute people.
I believe that most of them are seeking legal asylum in America, due to the extreme and oppressive conditions that they are fleeing from in their countries.
My heart truly goes out to them.
However, in spite of how many we open our hearts and gates to allow to enter into America, we do not have the economic means to accommodate them all.
In spite of the fact that most of these immigrants will help to fulfill the demand for workers in our agricultural sector, as well as other minimum wage jobs that many Americans shun, the initial economic burden that it is costing our government to provide health care, housing, and food subsistence for these destitute people (until they can make it on their own) is helping to strain and overburden our welfare system.
Therefore, I truly have mixed emotions about the plight of these people and our inability to receive them all. However, I pray that we will not forget, that for the most part, we are a nation of immigrants, a true melting pot and conglomeration of various ethnicities and people from all over the world.
Certainly the most important thing that we as Americans must be mindful of during the Fourth of July season is that it was the goodness and favor of God that brought about our ascension and prominence as a nation.
Though we are gradually drifting away from our moral foundation and have torn the Judeo-Christian thread that has woven the very fabric of our greatness in the process, there is still yet time and hope that we, as a nation, will repent and return back to the One who blessed us and made us who we are.
The following passages from the book of Psalm certainly contains and expresses the point that I am making here far better than I ever could through my frail and finite intellect:
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance.” (Psalm 33:12)
“The wicked go down to the realm of the dead, all the nations that forget God.” (Psalm 9:17)
In conclusion, these words of Alexis de Tocqueville, a French philosopher of the 1800’s, who came to America in search of the secret to our rapid growth and greatness, are very appropriate to close with: “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”