Change begins at the foundation

Matt Pearl

Another Independence Day has come and gone. During a major election year, it is perhaps fitting for all of us to reexamine the nature of our American Liberty, the specific brand of freedom that our nation promises.

Each of us views the concept of Americanism though our own perspective and experience. Race, socioeconomic class, personal upbringing, military affiliations—each is a lens that changes the colors of the flag, the spectral scope of freedom.

I cannot possess the viewpoint of a person from a race other than my own, nor can they truly hold my perspective.

What I can do is the same as what every true American has done for 240 years: I view an idealized nation, the flagship of global freedom. I see America as what it could be — what it should be — and hope that the problems of the present are able to subside and propel our civilization toward a better tomorrow.

But like most of you, I fight the temptation to become discouraged. Almost every time our two presidential front-runners speak, I find myself growing irritable, sarcastic, and even angry.

The truth is this: Donald Trump can say anything, and his followers will vote for him because he’s not Hillary Clinton. And the FBI told us earlier this week that even though Ms. Clinton possibly carelessly leaked information to unauthorized recipients, she will not be charged with any crime against the state.

I could have accepted that last part better, had the FBI spokesman not in the same speech reminded me and you — the non-royalty of this nation — that if we were to do the same, we would be subject to investigation and prosecution.

Lest this column descend into a political rant, I will instead redirect the attention of Americans back to our duty to our nation and our fellow man.

There is nothing you and I can do in this moment to redeem our State Department or our FBI (yes, I said our, for surely each agency is paid to serve the citizens of the United States). If there is wrongdoing, then for the moment, it must be so.

On the home front, however, you and I must raise our children to cling to strong virtues and expectations that we have held. When we look at Trump and Clinton, we are seeing the products of a generation’s priorities and standards: if we want tomorrow’s candidate to look better, we must begin the fight within our own homes.

Our Founding Fathers did not risk their lives and fortunes in the pursuit of an independent American nation so that we might sit idly by two and half centuries later and make justifications for corruption or impropriety. Rather, we each ought to take personally the fact that, on our watch, politics have grown so full of problems that the greater good of Americans is often being neglected.

So we can get upset with these candidates when we watch the television, but we only have ourselves to blame.

The good news is that this country — still a haven for freedom and the individual pursuit of happiness — still belongs to us.

If we would use the image of a skyscraper to symbolize the nation, we might see its president at the very top of the uppermost structure. We can change that top point every four to eight years, but until we remodel the structure beneath, we will see more of the same.

You and I, the working people, are the foundation of this tower of state.

Change in our homes, our lives and our local governments will bring about reform from the ground up.