To the Editor:

When I think about our national holiday on July 4th, today the traditional label of Independence Day seems to be treated more often like a journalistic byline. So it made me wonder if the holiday was advertised more as Independence Day, surely it would make a difference to those folks who see it as just another vacation day.

Without independence, you really are only left with a life that is contained within walls and partitions that prevent and prohibit you from being able to go and do and say as you please. So consider these thoughts. If through all of the arguments, deliberations, and conferences that our forefathers had in making a declaration for independence from Great Britain, had they not believed that a nation could be born and guided with a democratic document, would the United States of America still be here today?

If Independence Day was truly celebrated as the day that freedom and liberty were born, then those who fought and died in honor and loyalty for our nation would not have been in vain.

If Independence Day was recognized as the day that an experiment to create a republic came to fruition, then the freedoms that were written as the Bill of Rights would be defended with much more reverence than as something to be attacked and destroyed.

If Independence Day was accepted as the day that opened the doors to preserving a true democracy, then the freedoms that have resulted from many wars, skirmishes, and ongoing battles would be treated as sacrosanct and uninfringeable in our day to day lives.

If Independence Day was admired with the same devotion today as it was 237 years ago, then the line of division that keeps growing wider in our country among its own citizens could be conquered.

If Independence Day was respected as the magnificent turning point of living within a free society as it is by immigrants who flee to our country wanting nothing more than to become American citizens, then American values would not be trampled by ungrateful liberal hearts.

If Independence Day was treated importantly and ambitiously as the constant battle rampaging in our nations’ capitol to label and desecrate the Constitution as being antiquated and non-relevant, then we would become a more cohesive country that would be united in restoring American pride.

If we return to calling July Fourth each year as Independence Day, then maybe this simple gesture would start rebuilding a nation that is “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

ARVENE KILBY,

Bridgeton

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