|
Arpig -> RE: Things I Love About America (7/2/2011 10:11:21 PM)
|
What do I love about America? What it stands for. Not to US citizens, or too foreign leaders, but what America means to the man in the street the world over.
The idea. America is an idea, the idea that freedom can be made to work. That just maybe a country can work based on the idea that a person should be as nearly free as can be arranged, that a man can make his own way, and that a people made up of just such men can as well.
The dream. America is a dream. it is a dream of freedom hidden in the hearts of billions of oppressed people the world over. Maybe they can get to America, or maybe America can come to them, or maybe even, they can make their own America wherever they live.
The hope. America is a hope. The hope that freedom will survive, and that in time it will spread. That like an insidious disease, the germ of freedom spreads out from America.
The promise. America is a promise, a promise made to the people of the world. That as long as it stands, as imperfect and often off track as it may get at times, the idea will not die.
You have probably noticed by now that I haven't really mentioned anything that actually applies to or affects the people of the USA. That's because America doesn't belong to the people of the U.S., it belongs to everybody else. America is not the same thing as the USA. The USA belongs to you, it is your country, yours to figure out and to do whatever you want with. But America, the idea, dream, hope, and promise that is America, that belongs to the rest of us, and you are only the caretakers of America. And no matter how powerful the USA gets, America will always be infinitely stronger.
Do what you will with the USA, but take good care of America, we have entrusted it to you, please don't fuck it up.
Take the idea of America into your hearts and make it part of you, keep the dream of America alive in your hearts, let the hope of America flourish in your hearts. And keep the promise. it's a promise your ancestors made when they wrote those words that echo in the heart of every free person and every person yearning to be free: We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, ...
Noble words that made a weighty promise, one that has been entrusted to you to keep.
|
|
|
|
