It Was, You And I Aren't, Great

I am referring, of course, to  America. America was great, by and large, but for what I am no longer sure. Whatever it is now, it isn't what it was and will soon be far less. This loss of "greatness" is due primarily to the fact that too many of us think we are great because the nation was. We think we are somehow responsible for our own heritage, bringing new definition to the term "backwards." The moment we forgot to earn our greatness on a daily basis was the moment ignorance and sloth overcame ingenuity and industry. Few folks work much harder than I, or have served their country much more assiduously (with startling exceptions however). Speaking for them and for myself, I believe most of us would contend that the debt we owe is never paid. The work, the sacrifice, and opportunity costs purchase the trivial things that center so prominently in other's esteem. The minute our displaced identities turn to sports, guns, alcohol, drugs, gossip, pornography, patriotism, and politics for primary sustenance, we chip away at the foundation of our inheritance. When we close our eyes to the collateral damage our obsessions wreak on the rest of the world, we cheapen the very things we praise in our history. We are feeding off of a long dead carcass. You are not great. I am not great. A nation that maintains itself and betters the world around it is. Imagine a country that isn't full of second-hand greatness. Imagine a presidential campaign therein. Imagine a country endeavoring to be great again, but not through the convoluted revisionist notions of selfish people. Instead, though the eyes of a people longing to create a country and a world that is great for all, and something that their children can be proud of.