We're not perfect

On the eve of our national holiday, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it occurs to me that, huh, as a nation, we're not perfect. We're far from it. One reads the feeds from the internet, be in from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or the many other feeds that is the modern world of social media and one gets the impression that our country is sinking into a toilet.

No, we're not perfect. Never have been. There hasn't been a country or government the world has seen that stands the test of criticism from its own people. Well, maybe Canada, perhaps. Not too many others. What if the world of social media suddenly disappeared from our computer pages? Tomorrow on July 4th you wake up and there is no Facebook, no Twitter. How much would you be connected to the thoughts of someone else, a friend or a friend of a friend? Would you still be outraged about things that have been happening for two hundred years but you never gave it a second thought before social media?

What would happen if we walked back in time, lets say to the late 1960's. It was the height of the Vietnam War. American troops were flooding Southeast Asia. To tell us of it, we had mostly two outlets; the nightly news and newspapers. What we didn't have was the opinion of nearly everyone on the planet bombarding our eyes. What would 1970 have looked like if social media was a force for that generation? As it was, that war was the first to be shoved into the American living room. The average family saw first hand the horrors of war, the brutality, the inhumanity we as a species inflicted upon each other.

What we see now is a reflection of the voices in America. It would have been no different fifty years ago. We have not really changed as a country, we just hear more voices that in the past.

On this anniversary of our nation, God bless the United States. For all our trials and tribulations this is still the place more people flock to for a better life, a better world for themselves.

Happy Fourth of July America.