America isn't Easy...

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.

--President Andrew Shepherd (From the movie The American President, Written by Aaron Sorkin)

Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

--Winston Churchill (Speech in the House of Commons (1947-11-11)
 

Two-Hundred and Thirty-Five years ago a group of colonists set out on a journey that would be anything but easy to form a more perfect union.  As I've said before and will continue to say for as long as I have the ability to do so I believe the words above from President Shepherd define, better than any other, the ideal of what those men set out to build some two centuries ago.

Sadly though these words are an ideal, one which we have as a nation sought for 235 years, and the pursuit of that ideal has left many a battlefield stained red. Today many of those early battlefields lie as quiet reminders of physical price we paid in pursuit of that ideal. Even as we pause to reflect a new battle rages one fought not on the quaint commons of New England towns but in the digital-age equivalent. Today the foe we face is not the superior force of a more powerful army but the smothering forces of ignorance and apathy that stand as roadblocks on the path to that ideal. This new battle will be won and lost not with cannons and muskets but with keyboards and mice, weapons of the information age. There is much talk of a so-called "information revolution" much like the revolution 235 years prior I believe this is the next test of America. Will the principles of debate and discourse based in fact that this nation was founded upon prevail? Or will the shroud of ignorance and apathy fall like a blanket over the shining beacon on the hill?

There seems these days to be an endless supply of men or women "whose words make your blood boil, who stand center stage and advocate at the top of their lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." Of course all this is food for thought and deserves careful consideration but picking a side in a 235 year old debate isn't what today is about. July 4th is no more about which side you're on then it is about burgers on a grill, drinking watered-down beer, or watching fireworks. 

Some would argue that we celebrate the freedom to do all those things, perhaps. What I celebrate today is that after 235 years, and yes it's hard, and most of the time it isn't pretty, America still makes room on the left, center, and right of the stage for anyone with an idea good or bad.

Happy Birthday America. Happy Independence Day.