Recently, I was traveling through San Francisco International Airport. It was an early morning flight, and I had just gotten off a 16-hour shift, so I was definitely a little tired. While waiting for my bag to come through security, one of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers looked at my shirt. I was wearing a black shirt emblazoned with a star-spangled “1776” on the front.
The TSA officer said, “What happened in 1776?”
Puzzled by the question and weary from being up all night, I responded bluntly, “America was born.”
The TSA officer responded, “That’s it?”
That’s it? Really?
The TSA officer then said, “Yeah, I know my history.”
Do you, though?
Do you know that 56 men from 13 different colonies, with not much in common except geographic location and their connection to the crown across the pond, decided to sign their death warrants? That they decided that a system of government based on the consent of the people was worth dying for and that the time of kings and queens was over?
They decided that their lives and their fortunes were worth giving up for this idea. Against all odds, these men banded together and fought off the world’s largest army to earn their independence.
Today, we seldom talk about that. Thomas Jefferson once wrote to another future president, James Monroe, “My God, how little my countrymen know of the precious blessings they are in possession of and which no other people on earth enjoy.”
I would argue that the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent U.S. Constitution are two of the most important documents in human history. They literally changed the world. Before they were written, “divine right” and monarchies were the way most humans were ruled. After they were written, we started our American experiment. A republic was created and, 247 years later, still lives on.
As we look around the world today, there’s strife all over. Wars continue in foreign lands that most probably couldn’t find on a map. However, here at home, we’re relatively safe and undisturbed. But we can’t let this perceived safety make us soft and weak. We need to know our history. It’s our duty as Americans to know it and help preserve it for future generations.
As President Ronald Reagan once said: “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”
We must continue to tell the story of America. We must continue to educate ourselves about how we got here and the importance of our American experiment. We created a nation based on a creed. A creed that believes that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution and subsequent Bill of Rights were created to protect those rights and make us a “more perfect union.”
This Christmas season, take a minute to count your blessings that we live in America. Don’t take it for granted, because if we lose it here, there’s nowhere else to go.
