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Happy Independence (from Fear) Day!


You will find very few people who are more cynical about the direction of our country – and for very good reason - than me. Yet, oddly, you will also find very few people who are more optimistic about how it will turn out. Why? Because America has always been able to figure out how to solve our problems, one way or the other. As Winston Churchill said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”

We face a ton of problems at home and abroad yet it’s not like we haven’t faced this and worse before. We survived the Civil War, the Great Depression, WWI, WWII, Korea and Viet Nam. And we will survive ISIS and every other assault on modern life that comes our way too; that’s what we do.

I know that most of us are disgusted with the direction the country has taken and the choices we have for leaders and rightly so – in a country of 330 million, these are the two best candidates we can come up with?! But we forget that we’ve survived a number of really awful presidents in our history. To name just a few, Millard Fillmore, Warren Harding, John Tyler, George W Bush and, apparently, the infamous Muslim, African, Communist Barack Obama. Trust me, we’ll survive the Donald or Hillary too.

Don’t be confused by false messiah’s, we have a lot of problems but if anyone will solve them it will be us - doing it together. We will do it by not losing sight of all the things that have made us great: we are not a fearful people, we are optimists; we are country of immigrants where everyone wants to get ahead; we are willing to try and fail in order to try again and succeed. And we stick together when times are tough. 

I know sometimes we kind of lose sight of these things but somehow we always seem to get back to the simple truths that Thomas Jefferson wrote 240 years ago; we are all created equal and have rights that no one can take away from us and that’s what the 4th is all about. America has changed and will certainly continue to change but one thing won’t; until proven otherwise, this is still the greatest nation in the world.

So go ahead and have a beer and a hot dog on the 4th, you’ve earned it. (And let’s hope  that good, old Winston continues to be right!)


Happy Independence Day, my friends!

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