Before we get to Memorial Day reflections, an update on the HB 4 open government petition.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/123165418 It is almost to its launch goal of 1000 signatures. Let's put it over the top. An open budget process and controlling taxation go hand in glove. Please sign both the tax petition and the open government petition.

What can one say about today? I visited my daddy's grave today as I have the last 7 Memorial Days. He was a DAV from WW2, and a true patriot. He loved America. He taught me that America was a land of Divine destiny.

No, all we have done with the gift of America is not Divine. Slavery, the trail of tears, the long walk, segregation, abortion, the Japanese internment, and taking prayer and Bible reading out of the schools are some of the failures of our society. We fell on our knees in Jamestown and then brought slaves to their knees 3 weeks later. America has its original sin like humanity,The sin of racism.

Yet, to act as if America is somehow a corrupt land and unworthy of admiration because of its sins is to deny that greatness exists in humanity. Every nation of people has had its share of sins. Slavery was not invented by Americans. It was imposed upon us by the colonizers. Slavery has been a condition of humanity for most of recorded history.

What makes America unique is that we are the land which promoted the principles of human dignity and equality which have helped blot out this curse in most of the world. The greatness of America are its principles.

Some people would say we are hypocritical. I say so what. You have to be willing to live beyond your current actions. Those are the only ones with the courage to change. It is when we recognize higher principles that we become higher beings.

That is why God brought the rejects of the world to this land. The stone that was rejected became the head of the corner. America is the place where those thought to be losers came. The debtors, the religious outcasts, the losers in the African wars, and the starving in Ireland, China, and elsewhere. America was the place where the chains of class were removed and unprecedented prosperity emerged.

In America you could be the master of your own destiny under God. No one told you where to work or live. No one told you how to worship or what to say. America was a land of high principles. It was the city set upon the hill as founder John Witherspoon put it.

America was the land where we had no king but King Jesus. It was the land of minimal government and maximum freedom. It was that grand experiment or the proposition as Lincoln put it, that was "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people".

Unfortunately, not everyone has appreciated the exceptional nature of America. Some in power hate or hated it. We have had to defend this experiment with our own blood. Today, and one the real Memorial day (30 May) let's not just reflect. Let us rededicate our selves to that glorious proposition that it may not perish from the earth.

David