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Fourth of July sparks American values debate
As revelers celebrate the nation's birthday, commentators debate what it means to be an American.
Boston – As the United States celebrates its 231st birthday, Americans and Brits alike are assessing the American values that the holiday commemorates. This year, Independence Day comes at a challenging time for a nation that is weary of a four-year-old war, faces a number of civil rights questions, and has fallen in stature around the world.
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An editorial in The New York Times posits that though the Fourth of July is a local, American holiday, the value it stands for – freedom – is universal. The writer argues that freedom is a fundamental aspect of human nature, but he argues that "what matters as much as the principle of freedom is the practice of it." Given recent events in the US, he wonders if "whether, by who we are and how we behave, we can make the freedom that animates us compelling to others."
The country looks inward on the Fourth of July – not in introspection, but in an easy, comfortable sense of historical gratification. Yet this is a good day to look outward as well.
It is a day to ask how good a job – from the world's perspective – we are doing living up to the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, whether we have done enough to make those sonorous old rights seem like more than a limited case in a limited argument. The answer is more equivocal than we like to believe. But the ideal is one that must drive us all.
While many Americans fondly recall the Declaration of Independence on this holiday, an editorial writer for The Washington Post looks beyond the oft-cited preamble to some of the less frequently noted grievances listed by the rebellious colonists. "At times it reads like the complaint of a good-government organization rather than an indictment of a bloody-minded tyrant," says the writer. Still, the writer believes that the document's core values represent the American experience.
Fortunately, few schoolchildren memorize any of this list, and few Americans, young or old, are even aware of it. The nation's first founding document is remembered not for resentment, fears and ancient grudges but for the promise of opportunity and the guarantee of liberty. Its opening chords and its concluding pledge are still what bring people flowing into this country by the hundreds of thousands every year.
Though one editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times says America has much to "bemoan" right now, the presidential race offers jaded Americans a glimmer of hope.
