Making America Great... Finally

I consider myself a patriot. I love America, especially its people. But America is country full of contradictions and, to be honest, hypocrites. This, despite the way it sounds, is not a criticism. It is an inevitability of human nature. The founding fathers set us up. They set the bar so high that they had to have known that we would probably never reach it. That's why they were geniuses. Consider this:

"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."

Our very founding established America as a country of hypocrites. The author of these lines was a slave owner, as were many of those who signed it. The land of our young nation had been taken from the native peoples who had lived here long before us. The reality of America has never lived up to the rhetoric.

Yet this rhetoric has undeniable power. It gives us something to strive for. And we have made incredible strides. We freed the slaves. All adults are now allowed to vote. Same-sex marriage is legal. Some people look at this and are satisfied. I am not. And I believe that it was the intention of the founding fathers that I not be. The poverty rate for black, hispanic, and Native Americans is more than twice that of white Americans. Nearly two million women are raped every year. I view these as unacceptable problems.

But, like I said, the founding fathers set us up. They were smart men, they knew that the lofty statements in the Declaration of Independence were at odds with the way life in America was really lived. Yet they signed it anyway. I'd like to imagine they realized they were not perfect men, acknowledged their weaknesses, and hoped that future Americans would have the strength to do what they could not - turn their lofty rhetoric into a reality. And that is my goal, even though I realize it may not be obtained in my lifetime or anyone else's. This, too, is a good thing.

I believe that our ultimate goals should be unobtainable. Then we will never stop trying to improve our nation. Those who are satisfied with what they have, those who would turn back the clock on our progress, they are the ones I view as unpatriotic. In America, there is no such thing as good enough. The concept of America is constant improvement - the idea that someday, when our rhetoric matches our reality, America will finally be a truly great nation.