Editorial: Celebrate Independence Day by believing in America
Independence Day usually arrives with a sense of confidence, a mixture of patriotic pride and Yankee optimism.
This year, the mood seems gloomier, the public attitude more pessimistic.
Certainly, if you want to look for seeds of doubt to plant, you can find them.
The pervasive threat of terrorism hangs over the land like a disquieting shroud.
The divisiveness of one of the least ennobling election years in a generation sullies our national politics.
State government is mired in such dysfunction that its prospects to address fundamental challenges seem almost hopeless.
Unending violence patrols neighboring Chicago's heartless inner city streets.
Income inequality, racial disharmony, rising bigotry, miscarriages of justice, runaway spending, runaway partisanship, wars on several fronts.
It's easy to get down. This Independence Day bears witness to a relentless storm of problems.
But our problems can be solved. Our challenges can be met.
This is the greatest country on earth, with the highest ideals and aspirations.
The magic of the American idea is not one of perfection, for perfection is not within human reach. The magic of the American idea is that we're constantly in a process of perfecting.
The Constitution was crafted, after all, by flawed men - by slave owners and bigots and chauvinists. The beauty of the document they created isn't its purity or foresight but rather its sense of mission and purpose.
America moves ever onward.
That's what defines and excites us.
We have done great things in the past. We have met large challenges.
We have built prosperity and security, justice and liberty, and we have done so relentlessly, brick by brick, one gain rising upon another.
And we can do great and challenging things still.
But first, we must believe that we can. We must know that we can.
How much of our disillusion is sewn by angry talking cableheads who seek to inflame rather than enlighten? How much is the product of a politics that exaggerates problems rather than raises up solutions?
Less than a month ago, we were rocked in Orlando by the deadliest assault on U.S. soil since 9/11. Were we called to join together in common purpose and comfort as we were in those difficult days in 2001 or were we divided by the shortsightedness of cynical opportunists?
This Independence Day, let us throw off negativity. This Independence Day, let us rejoice and be steadfast.
Our country 'tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee we sing.