Elsewhere on this page, veteran observer of North Dakota politics and culture Lloyd Omdahl paints a dark picture of the nation's future. Not much "future in the future," the retired political science teacher writes, unless major change happens.
He's a tad too bleak on this Independence Day.
Of all the holidays Americans celebrate, the Fourth of July has hope at its core. The declaration by the men who would become founders of a new nation could not have been signed without extraordinary courage, intellectual focus and uncompromising hope. They envisioned a future in which a nation built on a set of new and powerful principles could be a light for the world. They were right. They hoped mightily for success and then went about the difficult task of ensuring success.
It hasn't been a smooth road. Generation after generation, it seems, concludes the nation is going to hell in a handcart. The reasons are as many as ducks on a slough: slavery, moral decay, political corruption, illegal wars, class warfare, economic inequality, phony patriotism, and - as Omdahl sees it - dumbing down education standards. You name it, there's always been a seemingly plausible reason the United States is said to be in decline.
Don't believe it.
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The history of the United States confirms that even in the nation's roughest times - the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Vietnam era, for example - Americans called on a vast reservoir of hope to pull themselves out of the funk. The founders recognized that the system of governance they developed required a spirit of exceptionalism. Hope that was borne again in every generation would be required to renew and nurture that spirit. It worked. It still works, despite the dire warnings from grim prophets whose stock in trade is gloom and doom.
That does not mean everything is peachy keen this Independence Day 2011. But was there ever a time when the nation was without trouble and threats, either external, internal or both?
The signers of the Declaration of Independence (several of whom would help write and then sign the Constitution and the Bill of Rights) were prescient. The courage they displayed by challenging the world's pre-eminent economic and military power required hope in a future in which a new nation would become the world's beacon of individual freedom. Without such hope - tempered by pragmatism and nourished by love of country - we have nothing.
Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper's Editorial Board.
