Happy Birthday!

If you have not read David McCullough’s books, John Adams or 1776, I strongly recommend them to you. McCullough tells of individuals who believed in their neighbors, thier countrymen, themselves, and, indeed, in everyone. He reminds us of the dichotomies and paradoxes as well as the physical hardships they endured as they gave life to an idea, a concept that had only been glimpsed in the words of others.

It is a fact that our nation is not one of a particular human race or ethnic culture; it is a nation of an idea and ideals. Our country has physical boundaries, but the idea that gives our nation life is boundless. The ideas of personal freedom and individual responsibility are not unique to our region of our Earth and they do not depend upon our specific political mechanisms. The ideals that the individual has worth; that her or his life and freedom are primary; that government is a contract between political equals—these ideals can be—and are—expressed in many nations through various forms of government.

On this day, we celebrate the ideas and ideals on which our nation is founded and we acknowledge the historic contributions of those very strong and yet very flawed people who willingly undertook the work to give those ideas life.

So, no matter your ethnicity or how many generations you and your family have lived within these boundaries, Happy Birthday to us all!