Independence Day: a reflection on what makes America great

If the Fourth of July is one of your favorite holidays, it is probably because the memories it conjures are centered on family gatherings and gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans.

The memories likely are colored red, white and blue from the flags and bunting that decorate front porches on community parade routes and festoon backyard barbeques.

The soundtrack might include a high school band performing John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” or a recording of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” with the music punctuated by the sizzle and pop of your community’s annual fireworks display.

As a youth, you may have marched with your Little League baseball team, your Scout troop or your dance team. Before you were old enough to march, maybe you sat on the curb and delighted at the candy tossed by passing politicians, local firefighters in their gleaming trucks or from a police officer in a patrol car with the light bar flashing blue.

And you stood at attention with the rest of the crowd when the color guard from the VFW or American Legion or other veterans’ group presented the flag.

Since 1980, Independence Day in central Ohio has begun for hundreds of thousands of people by attending Red, White and BOOM! in a 3-square-mile Downtown celebration along the Scioto Mile.

The longevity and continued attraction of BOOM! and the smaller, even longer-running suburban parades and festivities are testaments to the values that unite us as Americans and to the freedoms that we pause to honor on this day at least, if not more often throughout the year.

Yes, our American ideals of democracy and government — of the people,

by the people and for the people — have had to be defended militarily from time to time. And our freedoms initially were won by defeating an oppressive colonial rule.

But the beauty of the American experiment, now 243 years strong, was never meant to require continued military might for ensured enforcement.

Rather, America is built on the strength of humankind’s better angels, appealing to innate desires for the freedom to be the best men and women we can be for our families, ourselves and our communities.

Our freedom is best enforced and protected with a collective commitment to be an educated and engaged electorate, a willingness to entertain others’ different perspectives and points of view that can enrich and enlarge our own world view.

We must exercise our freedoms with an appreciation that they are fragile and can break if held too tightly and jealously. Freedom must be shared in order to thrive and grow.

A flyover in tight formation by expertly handled fighter jets might lend a momentary thrill to Fourth of July festivities, but our focus on Independence Day never should require the kind of military armament displays that mark some other nations’ unique holidays. That’s not who we are or who we should aspire to be as Americans.

On this Independence Day, we should rededicate ourselves to what makes America great by revisiting the words of our Founding Fathers: “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.”

Take time to read the rest.

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