232 YEARS LATER, WE'RE GETTING THERE. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!

America turns 232 today, still a kid in the fraternity of nations, some of them going back a thousand years and in some cases, several thousands. But the real reason America still has that brand new car smell is that we are always reinventing ourselves, always bringing in more raw human material to add to our already eclectic mix of ethnicities. You want to see the world, come to Brooklyn and you'll find somebody from every nation on the planet in the process of becoming or being an American. Unlike in say, Germany, where a seventh generation German-born Turk immigrant can never be a German, but always a Turk, a stranger in a strange land, in America the door is always open and membership is just short of automatic.

As much as a nation, America is an ideal, a set of political ideas that formalize our faith in humanity to someday get it right, to finally realize the high standards set by our Founding Fathers. We're not there yet and have had to overcome a lot of prejudices and grave mistakes, but by and large the journey continues and is well worth celebrating every 4th of July. It was July 4th, 1776 that America declared to world that all men are created equal, no man is above the law and no man is beyond its protection. We further stated what ought to have been profoundly obvious to humanity at that point, that there is no royalty anywhere born to rule the rest of humanity, a sentiment best expressed by Mark Twain a century later: "Royalty anywhere is an insult to men everywhere."

These assertions were a shock to the world of 1776 and more shocking still that we managed to gain our independence from the Rome of those times, The British Empire. They were further baffled by our idealistic Constitution and sweeping Bill of Rights, codifying individual liberties and protecting our citizens from the power of the state and of any church a well. People were allowed to say whatever they pleased and go wherever they pleased and rise to highest levels of achievement regardless of the circumstances of their birth. It took us another four score and seven years to apply these principle to all residents of these United States and free our slaves, but we did so.

The fact that our nation expanded it's size greatly at the expense of Native Americans and Mexicans can't be denied, another paradox unreconciled. But as we are currently constituted, our Bill of Rights rules over every part of America and no man is disenfranchised or unprotected, a judgement recently reaffirmed by our Supreme Court. From time to time we find ourselves having to rededicate ourselves to the idea of America, and the time is always right to do so. If it's not America to you, then it is not America to anyone. That lesson has been leaned and relearned throughout our history, often at great expense and trauma, but so far our journey moves forward and we remain ever faithful in humanity that the ideal of America and the reality of America will someday be one. Let's keep on going. Happy Birthday to us.