Those annoying countdown clocks the cable TV networks use to let us know how much time remains before a presidential address or something else regarded as worthy of our attention might be useful as America begins the countdown to the 250th anniversary of the publication of the Declaration of Independence.
A question that would be helpful for discussion during our increasingly divided times might be: “What does it mean to be an American”? Is it defined in the lyric of the Lee Greenwood song “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free”? That doesn’t fully answer the question: What is an American and even more, what is America?
Schoolchildren once studied such things before American history was re-written in many public schools and universities to fit a progressive narrative. They learned that the country was named for the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, whose claim to fame was the discovery that the land he was exploring, the New World, was not a part of Asia, but a separate continent. German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller used Vespucci’s first name, whose Latin version was “Americus,” to label the future United States on a map he drew in 1507. The name “America” was quickly and universally accepted. Today we might have had a naming contest.
That still doesn’t answer the question as to what is America and who are Americans? Frank Sinatra gave his answer in a song titled “The House I Live In.” In the run-up to singing it, Sinatra’s narration includes: “Only in America could all that’s happened to me, happen to a guy like me. Anywhere else I might have wound up digging coal.”
That gets close to answering the questions. America is a land of opportunity for those who can see it and seize it. If you can’t make it here, you are unlikely to do as well anywhere else. America is also about overcoming obstacles. Its stories used to inspire people who had a bad start in life before we accepted the false notion that we are entitled to what others own and don’t have to work for it.