AMERICA!

I LOVE America. I don't think I have EVER appreciated America and its ideals and values more. I think we all find it easy to lose among political rhetoric, international wars, and failing economics. I guess it never struck me how extraordinary, rare, and revolutionary our country was and is. I always took the declaration of independence to be an eloquent part of history that is fun to quote. I never fully grasped the implications of such a document until I looked at it from a historical and philosophical standpoint instead of patriotic propaganda. The Declaration of Independence was the first philosophical and political document of the Enlightenment which held completely to the era's ideals and was made reality. I suddenly realized we will someday have claim to a place in history greater than Athens or the Republic of Rome- of course I give acknowledgement of flaws as all human institutions inevitably possess- past and present. But still- I do not feel we should allow the fact that the world is an imperfect place to take away from appreciating the document which our nation was founded on.