It’s Independence Day. Let’s celebrate the greatest country on earth – America
Happy Independence Day to America
I pray your day is filled with the joy of family and friends, mouth-watering food, and fantastic fireworks displays – all in honor of the legacy of liberty we share as Americans.
It is especially important this year that we celebrate boldly and without apology. Every festivity, every heartfelt expression of thankfulness and patriotism, is one more stand against the false totalitarian narrative that we should be ashamed of being Americans. This narrative is poison to our nation’s soul.
So I hope you’ll join me in celebrating this great nation by participating in the #ProudAmerican campaign to help Americans remind one another, in person and via social media, why we should all be proud to be Americans.
We are the sentinels, called to stand up during this time in our nation’s history. We live in the greatest nation in the world, the greatest nation ever conceived. Our nation was founded by ordinary people, just like you and I, your ancestors; they fought a bloody revolution to birth not only a new nation but to birth a new form of government—a government of, for and by the people.
Each generation of your parentage built upon the previous to deliver you to where you are today. Through their consent, our parents, back 10 generations and more, conceived and built a nation, an economy, and a culture rooted in the virtues and principles and truths rooted in God. “We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights…”
America is not a utopia; we are “…a more perfect union,” meaning we are always striving to make this nation, this union, better for ourselves, our children, and our children’s children. There is no such thing as a utopia; there never will be on this earth.
America is a fragile Republic, and, as President Reagan reminded us, it is never more than one generation away from extinction. Reflect today on your liberties, your rights, and the greatness that your ancestors gifted to you. It is up to you to transmit that same patriotism to your children and grandchildren. They are not born with it; it is not in their blood; it only comes through your transmission of that patriotism to them.
It is up to each of us – through our consent – what the future will be in America, not misanthropes who hate humankind, our nation, and seek its destruction. Resolve today that you will stand up, speak up, and act for your nation, this last best hope for humankind.
You are not just standing for yourself, your children and grandchildren, but you are the living representatives of your ancestors, the Republic of the dead, and all they fought for, stood for, and built-in their struggles to deliver each of us to where we are today.
Resolve today that you will honor their legacy and this greatest nation on earth.
Joseph D. Leatherwood
