What America Becomes Is Up to Us
June 30, 2026Health of America Beyond Her Birthday
After the 250th celebration, we should take the time to assess the health of America beyond her birthday in the weeks and months to come.
When you look at what is happening on so many fronts, how would you say she is doing?
In the areas she is not doing so well, why isn’t she?
There are many reason why the health of America beyond her birthday celebrations may be cause for ongoing concern.
The leaders whom we have entrusted with her care — her very lifeline — are not doing what it takes to keep her healthy and strong. To promote her general welfare. In the meantime, we the people are asleep at the switch.
America’s health, like our body’s, is dependent on the function and well-being of all of its parts.
First, what actions define a healthy America? The Constitution and its amendments provide the answer: “… to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”
For this reason alone, we can see the health of America beyond her birthday is in need of our continual attention and intervention.
When we examine the parts — state governments, the federal government and we the people — that shoulder the primary responsibility of keeping America healthy and performing at its best, what do we find?
The persistent efforts in many states over the last several years to make the basic right of citizens to cast a vote more difficult than convenient, thereby denying many Americans the opportunity to participate in the direction and policy decisions of their government.
Even when the majority of the state’s citizenry, through the amendment petition process, make their wishes known, some state lawmakers go to exhaustive extremes — deceptive or misleading ballot language, appeals to the judiciary — to undo, evade, ignore or subvert the will of the people.
When efforts are made to block citizen participation, the very life blood of our democratic process, the health of America beyond her birthday requires ongoing monitoring.
Health of America Beyond Her Birthday
(Evgeny Gromov2/iStock Images)
Our national leadership has dictated, set the pace and given permission for what we see occurring in the states.
Many elected officials ignore, denigrate and dismiss some of the key tenets of the great document that made the nation’s birthday possible, the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Are the actions of the current government leadership that we the people have installed consistent with these basic tenets, promoting the health of America beyond her birthday?
The Declaration of Independence is crystal clear about the rights and responsibilities of the people: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Whether at the local, state or national level, the people are not to sit idly by and allow the health of the nation to deteriorate.
We are in the midst of primary elections, readying ourselves to cast defining votes in the midterm elections in November.
Let each of us, as we commemorate the birthday of our nation, take time to truly assess the health of America beyond her birthday.
More importantly, let us ask ourselves whether the actions of those we have entrusted to provide leadership are consistent with what is necessary to keep America and its values — its laws, principles and rights — safe, healthy and strong for another 50, 100 or 250 years for future generations?
If not, what are we willing to do about it?
Portions of this column first appeared in The Missouri Independent
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