June 29, 2011
Against overwhelming odds
Next Monday is Independence Day. For someone like me, who grew up in a small agriculture-based country town in the heartland of the birth of our great nation, the holiday has always had a special meaning. I have often wondered why.
Perhaps it is because the Fourth of July is a part of our nation’s collective historic Zeitgeist, which commemorates the shared common experience of a great nation surviving against overwhelming odds.
As I have grown older and my study of history has intensified, the holiday has only grown in stature and meaning.
History is written by the winners and it is often sanitized and romanticized to an extent that the events portrayed by historical accounts, would be unrecognizable by the participants.
This great experiment we call democracy, freedom and America, should have failed any number of times in history and yet we prevail.
After the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress, which was only a revolutionary government in formation since September 5th, 1774, immediately set about the struggle to form a national government among states that did not get along, delegates that did not like each other, and regions of the colonies that had diametrically opposed interests.
On July 3, 2005, George Will wrote that when General George Washington “arrived... http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=4485
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