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January 20, 2009 –
There's not a person on the planet who can not sense the historical
nature of this day.
Yet on this day when America's first ever mixed race
President will be sworn in, tough times abound for a nation that
only recently sat atop the world. And so the question on many
people's minds is, "Are America's best days yet to come?"
I can definitively, without question answer... no.
As is often the case with The Moderate Independent,
the answer you read doesn't necessarily mean what you at first may
think it does.
When we think about America's best days thus far, we
can think about the day we won our independence from what was then
the mightiest nation on Earth; we can think of the day we ended
slavery once and for all; and we can think of a day like the day we
were part of one of the greatest victories over tyranny in the
history of man, the day we won World War II.
Now if you stop and think about each of these days,
what do they all have in common? These greatest of American
days all have in common that they found the nation in far less than
wonderful condition.
On the day America won its independence from Britain,
it stood as a beat up, poor, rag tag bunch of colonies that had no
place in the world; as a fledgling nation with a massive amount of
work ahead of it.
On the day that the slaves were freed, America found
itself torn, divided, and bloodied, not a major power in the world,
and questioning whether it could ever again stand as one nation.
And on the day victory was secured in World War II,
did America find itself wealthy, powerful, and in the midst of a
glorious time? To the contrary, America was deeply in debt, at
the culmination of five of the most brutal years the world had seen,
and with the uncertain prospect of how to deal with the wrath
despotism and genocide had wrought and to somehow come up with a
means to prevent it from occurring again.
These are how Americas best days past have looked.
People think about great days, and the image that
often comes to mind is that of peace, prosperity, and a sense of
calm and security. In reality, how many of America's greatest
days have come in that form? The answer is: none.
Such times are average days, often days of gluttony and excess in
which America is heading toward decline; the Roaring Twenties, the
Excessive Eighties and Nineties. America's truly greatest days
occur when great things happen in the midst of chaos and, often,
misery.
And so to answer the question that began this
article, "Are America's best days ahead of us?" No.
America's best days are behind us, and they are ahead of us, and,
they are right now.
America is in a time of economic turmoil and decline,
but in the midst of it, America is having one of the greatest days
in its history. No one should overlook the peak at which
America stands at this moment just because the surrounding
environment is imperfect. That is how great days come.
History won't remember the surrounding rubble. It will
remember the lasting pillar of accomplishment.
As someone who used to play ice hockey, I learned a
secret back in the day. Many people, when they think of ice
skating, think it is about trying not to fall. Then there are
those who try to sound profound - ala Eliot Spitzer - and say, no,
greatness is in rising every time you fall. It is my
experience that neither are the case.
The truly great moments are when your feet are up in
the air over your head because someone just slashed your feet out
from under you, but, while in a desperate mid-air situation you know
will not end well, you still manage to keep your eye and stick on
the puck and somehow orchestrate a miraculous flip in past a goalie
who is busy reveling in your coming crash landing.
We need not look ahead for America's greatest days.
We are in the midst of a tough stretch, one that may be just
beginning. Yet, America's greatest moment is here.
Yes, America's greatest days aren't yet to come, they
are here and now.
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