Here is a column I wrote about Independence Day seven years ago.
I was thinking the other day about what it means to be a patriot in the United States.
Suffice to say that my experience growing up in the 1960s and 1970s gave me a fairly jaundiced outlook on patriotism. At the same time, it was something that I sensed had a fundamental basis in principals that were intended to benefit the well-being of the population of the entire United States, not just part of it.
So, I kept wondering.
Then in the early 1990s Nina, my wife, and I went to Washington, D.C. We walked the National Mall, visited all the monuments, the White House, the Capital, and many of the museums. I felt insanely proud to be an American and proud of all our country has accomplished over two plus centuries.
In the swirl of all that gets attached to celebrating the Fourth of July, do remember what it says in the Declaration of Independence:
“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.”
I suggest that anything we each can do that supports this statement is consistent with being a patriot.
I’m surprised when being a patriot in the minds of many Americans means being independent. The way I see our country, it seems that only by all of us embracing interdependence is independence possible.
Given the world we live in today, this point seems even more relevant.
Happy Fourth of July!