Everywhere we look these days it seems like there is someone else screaming about the injustices of the United States.
- We were terrible to the blacks
- We were terrible to the native Americans
- We were terrible to the poor
- We were terrible to the Chinese
Turns out Columbus was a bad person. So was, the way many tell it today, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. Oh forget it! It’s useless trying to name all the scum that has surfaced in the history of the US.
But I listened to the final episode of a podcast called Revolutions. The host did not publicly note the significance of this, but he did remark that, in 1848, at the bitter end of all the world revolutions of that year, all of those failed revolutionaries fled for their lives to, you guessed it, the United States.
Truth be told they weren’t the only ones making their way to America. They came from Spain, France, Russia, Ireland, Germany. Name the place, name the culture, name the race, creed or religion and you will find people from them who came here for a better life. Did it work out for everyone? Of course not. Success in life is not guaranteed by governments, no matter how beneficent. But they did come and they did have a chance, and many more of them than not did improve their place over where they had been.
No one has ever claimed the earliest people in our country were perfect. But I for one am thankful for the country they created and I am thankful to be a part of it.
“I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the Republic for which it stands
One nation under God, indivisible
With liberty and justice for all”
Marvin McKenzie
In the fields
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