Today is the official 233rd birthday of the United States of America, so it seemed fitting for me to make a couple of comments about our great country. I couldn’t think of anything that better reflects what’s BEST about America than my title: What a country we live in, when it has plenty of room for both a Sarah Palin and a Barack Obama!
(I don’t often use exclamation marks, but it seems appropriate there and in the title.)
I love the fact that we can be passionate about extremely diverse political positions — even such polar opposite positions as Sarah Palin’s and Barack Obama’s — and still live together under the structure of the U.S. Constitution and the various federal, state, and local laws, without armed violence, government overthrows, anarchism, etc. It doesn’t take much looking around our world and throughout history to see that such tolerance and cooperation within a nation is relatively rare. Two well-known cases to illustrate that would be North Korea and Iran. Fat chance political dissenters would be tolerated in either of those nations.
So hooray for us, America. May the strength of our nation, our Constitution and body of laws, stand strong against all threats of chaos. And may we ever offer hope to those throughout the world who are in despair.
And may we pray for those who suffer oppression and loss in all nations.