Will The Real America Please Stand Up

If this Union is to become more perfect, it is “We The People” who must make that happen.

America has never really been about Americans. It has always been about the “tired,” the “poor,” the “huddled masses” of the rest of the world that yearns to be free. For four centuries, they have moved here to escape oppressive tyrrany, to worship without compulsion and to flee the bondage of poverty. America is about those people – the refugees of every culture and nation on earth. It is about the world and it is about freedom.

It is no small thing to be a citizen of the greatest nation on earth. It means adherance to the principles upon which this nation is founded. The principles, so often illustrated in the lives of our founding fathers and in the history of the nation, are as valid today as ever. But living in the freedom and the individual rights that we have also means that we live with the responsibilities of those freedoms.

1. • The right to choose implies the responsibility to choose wisely.
2. • The right to an education implies the responsibility to think.
3. • The right to religious freedom implies the responsibility to pray.
4. • The right to life implies the responsibility to value life.
5. • The right to liberty implies the responsibility of toleration.
6. • The right to own property implies the responsibility to work.
7. • The right to vote implies the responsibility to know the issues.