On any given day, you could be forgiven for not wanting to get out of bed.
If you’re paying any attention at all, why would you? The economy is still sputtering, the climate is going to hell, international relations are a mess, our health care system is a disaster and our federal government is so gridlocked it is effectively useless and God only knows what is going to happen with the terabytes of information the federal government is gathering on millions of law abiding Americans, supposedly for the sake of keeping us safe and free.
Still as we look ahead to our national birthday July 4, we have much to celebrate and much to be grateful for. Yes, as we take stock this year, a lot of things are seemingly going sour right now, but things have been bad before. Worse in fact.
One hundred fifty years ago this week, Americans were literally killing each other at Gettysburg, also known as the largest battle ever fought in North America. We went from an actual honest-to-God-killing-each-other-by-the-thousands civil war to uniting as one nation and dominating the international stage less than 100 years later.
Even today with all the slings and arrows thrown at us, some rightfully so, we are still a place where people want to come and create their American Dream.
We are a country where, with a little luck and lot of hard work, an individual can still make their own fortune.
If there is much to be concerned about these days there is still much to celebrate as the United States turns 237 this week.
