As we approach our national holiday, July Fourth, let us be reminded that, in spite of what seem to be ever deeper divides in our beloved country, we are still a nation bound together by our common heritage of freedom of thought and expression. May we apply those freedoms with respect for each other and reverence for our rights.
National debates seem to be carried on in more shrill tones than ever before. Too many of us seem more bent on breaking down than building up. We seem less and less able to tolerate those whose opinions don't match our own.
History tells us, of course, that this generation didn't invent discord. Our founding fathers, often the eponym for unity, were actually a disparate group with hefty personal and political enmities.
Alexander Hamilton, often credited with being the brains behind the Washington administration, was at acrimonious odds with Jefferson, Madison and John Adams. Adams could barely tolerate Franklin. Yet they were able collectively to find enough areas of compromise to launch the wondrous experiment called the United States.
They slandered and otherwise maligned one another with impunity, but they all were driven by the obsession of establishing a government of, by and for the people. They'd seen instances of other governments where rights were truncated or denied altogether and were determined not to let those inequities get a foothold in their new country.
How could they, from scratch, find the perfect balance between federal and states' rights? Establish equitable taxation? Provide a common defense? Impose law and order? Decide foreign policy? Give birth to an economy?
Yet they did, even though the areas of disagreement among them were so profound.
Today, as we prepare to celebrate what they did and what it has led to, we are wracked perhaps more than ever by our divisions. As a collection of citizens, we often seem to take more pleasure in our differences than our similarities of purpose.
The Internet has offered us a whole new venue for cacophonous dispute. We look for leadership to those obsessed with notoriety of their own. It sometimes appears not enough to disagree — we must hate in order to feel fulfilled. We cannot express disagreement without attaching to it the most vile insults we can divine.
As we hang our flags for display this weekend, may the gesture remind us that we are all Americans with far more in common than what separates us. On this one occasion in the year, at least, may we come together in rooting for each other's successes and for our collective successes.
Hamilton, Jefferson and the rest gave us an example of the emergence of strength out of discord. They made their differences of opinion work positively to create what is as close to perfection as any young government has ever managed.
Let's not lose sight of that example.
Opinion
July 2, 2009
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