A nation divided as Independence Day nears
We are about to begin another three-day holiday weekend, Independence Day, this coming Monday.
There are a lot of traditional activities on this holiday, not that reading these words is in any danger of becoming part of that, and if you've heard me write some of this before you've been standing too close to the keyboard.
Before it gets crazy busy with holiday preparations perhaps, we could look in the mirror and then look around at the country we received from our parents and which we hope to give to our children. There’s been as much gained as there has been lost through the tears and years and some of what’s changed has been better and some of it has only been different. The dilemma is in deciding which and what.
Historically, the heat was oppressive, and tempers were hot in Philadelphia two hundred and fifty-six years ago as malcontents and troublemakers (in the eyes of His Majesty, George III, King of England) gathered to refine, define, and catalog their grievances and complaints with the most powerful empire in the world.
Articulating what they called our ‘unalienable rights’ to include ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ the founders of our republic, who did not agree on much except that the present state of affairs as they were in 1776 could not continue, concluded the only way forward on this largely unexplored, new continent whose size and wealth was not yet known, was to break with the past and declare independence from King and Crown.
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Out of all of that has come all of this. And along the way, the original magic and meaning have diluted by backyard pool parties, holiday car sales, and burgers and hot dogs on the barbecue.
Our politics is spirited but our interest isn’t; we confuse partisan and patriot far too frequently and our understanding of issues is muddled and muddied because too many have created media echo chambers where all we know is what we choose, not what we should.
Reports suggest we haven’t been this divided morally, politically, and socially as a country since the Civil War. And that should frighten us more than it does and galvanize us into redoubling our efforts to reach out to one another, and yet ….
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Some say never have so many had so much of life’s material rewards, but others contend that never have so many struggled to hold on to what they have. There's much to be said on both sides of that argument but there’s even more that we're not hearing because we’re just not very good anymore at listening to one another.
What we may be missing as a nation is our sense of self, our confidence and belief in our own abilities to forever adapt, adopt and overcome. We had those traits at our Founding, and I’d hope each, in our own way, would again rediscover them, both for those whose inheritance we are and for those whose promise is yet to be.
Happy 4th of July and may the 5th and all the days that follow be even more so.
Bill Kenny, of Norwich, writes a weekly column about Norwich issues. His blog, Tilting at Windmills, can be accessed at https://tiltingatwindmills-dweeb.blogspot.com/.
This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: A nation divided as Independence Day nears
