There is a degree of religious belief to the founding of the United States.

We often recall the writings, exploits, successes, failures, and achievements of our American Founding Fathers, with the same degree of affection as the Romans had toward their own founding.  Miraculous.  Ordained.  The singular highest pinnacle of human society.

The truth of our founding is more muddied, in truth.  What began as a protest against a mostly reasonable tax on sugar (which in truth was a tax break; merchants had not been collecting the 6 cent tax because they were taking a 1-2 cent bribe and the crown instituted a new 3 cent tax to replace the 6 cent tax with more enforcement to actually have it collected) grew and grew until conflict was inevitable.  There were as many failures as there were successes.  Our original point of origin, the Articles of Confederation, is an uncomfortable part of our history.  Our United States Constitution takes the place of a near-sacred document, with most of us ignorant of the many compromises underlying it, and the actual intent of those who wrote it.

The risk in believing in a near-miraculous founding is that what is ordained by a higher power, what is established by saint-like human figures, must surely survive any assault upon its existence.  If it was purely of human design, of course it would be a frail, delicate thing with many flaws.  But if it was of a greater design, with a greater purpose?  Well, until that purpose is realized, it cannot break.

This concept or belief is, unfortunately, foolish and misguided.

Our nation is a flawed nation, built by flawed men and women, fostered by flawed men and women, and led today by flawed men and women.  There is no perfection to be found here.  There are no Halcyon days.

Much like the planet we reside upon, which every day finds new ways of trying to eliminate humans with temperature, weather, disease, and the like, every day our flawed nation is at risk of attack and destruction.  By our own hands.

There was a dream of what the United States could be.  We have pushed toward that dream, that ideal, for generations.  Pushing further and further, improving bit by bit, struggle by struggle.  We are a better nation today than we were fifty or a hundred or a hundred-and-fifty years ago.  More people are free.  More people are equal.  More people live better and longer lives.

But like the tale of Achilles in the race with the rabbit, we will always have to fight, to struggle, to improve our country, and even then we will never get there.  Like the muscles of your body, without effort and exertion, our improvements and cultural gains shall whither and disappear, and our long, hard struggle will only become longer, and harder.

So that is why I am here.  We do have a heritage, sacred or not, to uphold.  We must resist what may erode what we have become over the centuries.

We will persevere.