the real meaning of the 4th of july (part 2)
This nation was founded on change. People were uprooted from the very roots of their existence to come here. Most people gave up everything and everyone they had known, then were forced to invent a completely new way of life in a virtually unknown world. Even native Americans were forced by events into adapting to endless change.
That process of change has been endless throughout our history, inventing new ways of doing things, and fighting through endless obstacles to do it. Only historians can properly mark all the turning points, but certain eras stand out. There are certain periods of time that stand out, when national events and circumstances led to major changes in our very fabric as a society.
The Real Meaning of the Fourth of July - Part 1
We own values. Our core beliefs are who we are, and they’re powerful. Yet, we Democrats never seem to recognize it, we never seem to look deeper. We cling to policies, and purity tests, and squabbling. We divide ourselves endlessly. We take apparent victory and turn it into defeat, and we do it over and over again. And each time we scratch our heads and ask “why?”
The Republicans understand we own values, that’s why they have spend so much time and money demonizing us. It’s why they’ve had a giant organization working in the background for decades, just to destroy our identity. They fear our values because they’re American values, because they stand for this country’s future, because deep down most Americans want to believe in them.
But these core values are never going to really be seen as our values … as our identity … until we stand up and declare them, till we own them. And there’s no better example than the Fourth of July.
Democrats and the 4th of July
The Declaration of Independence is the soul of our party. It’s all right there at the beginning: all men are created equal … inalienable rights … life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You don’t need anything else, that is the real Democratic Party right there. That is who we are deep down, our touchstone, and we should celebrate it. The Fourth of July is our holiday, the parades, the fireworks, all of it. It’s one big celebration of what we have been striving for ever since FDR became President. We haven’t finished the job, not by a long shot, and the whole thing is under attack right now. But there is a Common Thread, a clearly visible Democratic moral purpose that runs through all of the social and economic progress of the past ninety years, and we should be proud.