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American Reasons to Give Thanks

Domenick J. Maglio, Ph.D. Neo-Traditionalist

Thanksgiving is a holiday that dates back to the time of the pilgrims. This traditional holiday is losing its powerful significance for too many of us who have been spoiled by the blessings of living in America. The more material wealth people accumulate, the more they want and the less they appreciate.

Even in a culture that often focuses on the glass half empty, rational citizens know our glass runneth over. It is hard to deny our country’s vastness, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, its beauty and its incredible resources. This natural material wealth has produced a huge variety of options for our citizens. We have a myriad of choices to purchase anything from homes to cars to electronics to clothing to food from anywhere in the world. Unlike other western countries we have practically full employment for any citizen who is willing to work.

People worldwide are aware of the greatness of America. Many are literally willing to put their lives on the line to enter our country. A friend of mine at nine-years-old was put on an inner tube raft not once but twice trying to enter the United States from Cuba. After failing the first time he and his seventeen year-old brother were picked up by a Philippine steam ship. They had drifted far off course to the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and were on the verge of dying from lack of food and water. This child and his teenage brother without any government assistance made successful lives for themselves in the United States. Thirty years later the nine year-old at thirty-nine appreciates the help he received from Americans who recognized his willingness to work and gave him various menial jobs to climb the economic ladder.

The American dream is very much alive. Increasingly it is the recent immigrants in our nation of immigrants who take the most advantage of the opportunities afforded us all. These new arrivals use the American traditional virtues of hard work, strong family and frugality to create a better life. They are the new blood that keeps our society energized.

The melting pot that is America has brought the markets and restaurants of the world to our neighborhoods. We can worship in any church we want without worrying about government persecution. We can talk freely about religion or politics instead of hiding in the back room fearful of being reported to government officials. My wife and I, on a trip to communist Yugoslavia in 1968, were directed by our host to an isolated room in his house where he could safely and openly ask us questions about America. He was truly fearful.

Americans are free. Regardless of our accent or customs we are equal under the law. We are a nation of inclusion that improves us all.

Our founding father’s legacy of the U.S. constitution is a blueprint providing us the opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The sophisticated checks and balances of our three branches of government has established peaceful stability for most of us throughout our history. With the exception of the Civil War little of our citizen’s blood has been shed on our soil.

We have maintained our significant civil liberties while preventing foreign invasion of our country thanks to our citizen warriors willing to fight for these liberties. These brave men and women have protected the homeland and other democratic nations for two hundred years all over the globe. Not only have these heroes not received acknowledgement for their deeds of courage, often they are treated as criminals by their ungrateful compatriots. Above all else these ungrateful elites have demonstrated how unaware they are of the price others have paid for their ability to live a life of peace, freedom and prosperity. Freedom is not free: it comes with a price.

Thanksgiving is a symbolic day that shines the light on our blessings as individuals, family members and as a nation. If we fail to recognize what we have as a people it will lessen our resolve to fight to preserve it.

America is not entitled to being the number one country on earth. We have to keep on earning this position by being faithful to the wisdom of our forefathers and the laws of God that inspired them. God has blessed America.