And Crown Thy Good With Brotherhood From Sea to Shining Sea

No, it is time to present the other side of the coin. True, America isn't perfect, it's just better than just about anywhere else, and it is constantly striving to improve itself. There are lots of ideas of what would be better, and it is one of our virtues and strengths, that people can try them out to see if they actually improve things. We currently have a large experiment with Socialism involving one of the largest cities in the country. It is turning out just as most of us thought it would, but hey, we are giving it a try.

Our earliest settlers came to this land seeking the freedom to practice their Christian beliefs as they saw fit. They left nations that required them to believe according to whatever religion the State required—typically whatever was the religion of the king at the time. Today people are still free to believe or not as they wish. Religious freedom is enshrined in our Constitution, unlike many other countries, mostly Islamic, where you believe or else.

A fanciful pseudo-history claims that America was founded and built by black slaves. While true that at the time of our Revolution there were about a half million slaves in the colonies, only about a third of them were black. The rest were mostly white British transportees with a few natives in the mix. In those times, Britain was selling off its homeless, its poor, and its convicts as slaves and dumping them into its colonies. Australia was not the only beneficiary of this largesse. Even Irish children came here as indentured servants or worse. The Black Irish, despite the name, were not black.

The black slaves who were brought to this country were only a tiny fraction of the product of North African muslim slave traders who had instituted and been conducting black slave trade for over a thousand years before the American colonies were even an idea. Yes, many of these were muslim because that was the religion of their slave masters and they had no choice. Several thousand former black slaves fought in our Revolution, not because they were muslim, but because they were free. Many, if not most of them became Christian, having learned of John 8:32.

One of our earliest Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, while we were still an infant nation, sent a military expedition far from our shores in a first attempt to curtail the ravages of Islamic savagery. Muslim pirates based in North Africa were attacking Spain, France, Italy, Greece, and other Mediterranean locales, taking captives for slaves and plundering traders throughout the region. American trading vessels were regular targets with many sailors taken captive. The muslims were equal opportunity slavers, taking whites as well as blacks. American Marines marched on Tripoli, which was the center of the Ottoman muslim sponsored Barbary pirates--greatly reducing pirate depredations on the entire Mediterranean, and adding "to the shores of Tripoli" to the Marine Hymn. This was one of the earliest instances of American support for the ideals of freedom throughout the world, not just within our borders.

Although a later President, Andrew Jackson, forced resettlement of many Native Americans, in what has become known as the "Trail of Tears", that is universally recognized as an aberration rather than an expression of American ideals. The westward expansion, started largely by Thomas Jefferson by acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 offered new hope for millions. It continued with the Spanish Possessions and the Oregon Territory, and even through the period of the Civil War.

While there were instances of injustices throughout this period, including the time known as the "Indian Wars" following the Civil War, This expansion into largely unoccupied territory provided opportunity and refuge for millions, ranging from refugees from interminable European wars, to the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s to the Huguenots of France fleeing religious persecution, to Chinese victims of the huge floods of the 1846 to 1857 period when many Chinese fled to America

Millions of others came seeking freedom and opportunity unavailable in their home countries. They came, wishing to become Americans, not displaced European or Asian or African colonizers wanting to recreate the oppressive environments they left. They saw the ideals of America, the freedom of religious practice, the individual liberty, the opportunity to make fresh starts where individuals could own property for their own use, not for kings or nobles or Caliphs, and where it was the obligation of the state to protect the rights of individuals, rather than the obligation of the individual to serve the state.

As with the entirety of human history, there was suffering and injustice at times. That must be balanced against the opportunity, prosperity, and happiness of a far greater number. Does that mean we should deny the suffering, or should we rather thank them for their gift? Not since the Roman Empire and the Pax Romana has the world seen such peace, prosperity, freedom, and opportunity as America has presented to the world.

In the last century, America participated in two great wars, not because our interests were greatly threatened, but because we saw Europe and Asia being overcome by tyranny and injustice. We joined the "War to End Wars" to deliver Europe from a largely Germanic obsession with militaristic imperialism. A second major war arose from the toxic philosophies of Socialism and its derivatives of Nazism and Fascism. It was mirrored in a Japanese philosophy of racial superiority shared by its European allies. In both instances, America stepped in to save the world from itself, with most of our soldiers sustained by their Christian beliefs, including John 15:13. We didn't have to do that, but we did it because it was right and because it was in the American character.

Many today seek to erase Christianity from American history because it stands as an obstacle to their drive to power. The salvation of Christ is a gift for every individual, not for a group or a collective. The idea of individual rights is deeply embedded in Christian thought and philosophy since its earliest days. The concept of divine rights given to individuals influenced philosophers for nearly two thousand years, culminating in the writings of Locke and Hume - writings deeply influential on our founders and their ideals. Christian concepts of justice and individual rights permeate our entire systems of government and law. Like it or not, we are a Christian Nation, and much the better for it. We forget that heritage and influence at our peril. It is as vital to us today as at any time before.

There is much more that could be and has been said of the good that is America. Not all agree with our ideals, though, and there are those today who seek our destruction. America is odious to those who seek the power to impose their will over others. We are a bad example of the prosperity of free enterprise for those who believe they can manage an economy better. We are an example of how individuals, operating on their own initiative, free from the shackles of oppression can become wealthy by creating new wealth for all.

We are a threat to tyrants everywhere when we have police organizations formed to protect individuals and their communities from predators, instead of having police organized to protect the powerful from their people. We are a threat to those who would steal the wealth and property of citizens to buy the support through distribution of what they have not earned to greedy takers, envious of others.

Our enemies have become clever in their efforts. Corruption of our elections, use of taxation to support those who hate us, revision of our history to emphasize our few failings while ignoring our myriad successes, creating an education system that disdains to teach the essentials of mathematics, reading, writing, honest history, civics, logical thought to generations of students, and much else have all contributed to current doubts regarding the value of America and its ideals. They have fostered a divisiveness not seen here for nearly two hundred years—a division that only serves our enemies and contributes nothing good to our Nation.

Have we changed? Have we become a nation that no longer upholds these ideals of liberty and justice and the worth of the individual? Have we become a nation where the many must be forced to suffer for the injustices of a few? Are we a nation that exploits the resources of others to enrich ourselves, contributing nothing except oppression?

I think not. It is only by myopic focus on our faults and on the times we have failed to live up to our ideals that the much larger picture of all that we have given and continue to give to the world can be missed. We are the Nation that continues to uphold the inherent worth of the individual, the Nation that fought a great war to end slavery and continues to support the rights of all races.

We are the Nation that even today has fought, just weeks ago, wars to free people from governments and ideologies that would enslave and impoverish them, that would demand their obedience at the cost of their lives. We are still the country that has given the world the tools of medicine, of communication, of commerce and so many others that have raised billions out of disease and poverty and oppression—more than any nation before.

Yes, America, you are worth celebrating in this 250th anniversary of independence. Let us ask that God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!