America Essay

America is a nation founded on the fundamental beliefs of rights, liberties, and independence. They were not easy to obtain, in reality we had to fight a war to gain anything at all, but we achieved something from that war that was foreign to all society at that time, a thing called freedom. In the Webster's Dictionary freedom is defined as "exemption or liberation from the control of some other person or some arbitrary power." It's plain and simple, easy to obtain and apply, right? Wrong. Freedom is the type of thing that is hard to gain and easy to lose. When we forget about the principles that make up our freedom we can find it slowly slipping away. Without certain convictions, issues that we would gladly fight wars and sacrifice our lives on behalf of, there would be no such thing as freedom in America. What are those convictions? What are the values that bind freedom to America? They are none other then equality, compromising, and open-mindedness.

For one thing, to ensure our unalienable rights of freedom we need equality. A free nation is not really free if its people are condemned to a life of being looked down on and restricted from doing simple everyday things such as eating at a diner's bar. A truly free nation can not allow any of its people to be forced into the shadows and not allow their opinion to be heard. It's happened before, numerous times. During WWII Asian Americans were forced to be silent and were violently hauled away to relocation camps just because they happened to resemble our enemy at that time. We've banished American Indians in the past to reservations because they held different customs and worshipped different beings. Everyone is equal, no matter who they happen to resemble or what they happen to believe, and until everyone in a nation is treated as such the nation is not truly free for all.

In addition to equality we have to compromise. With a population of about 300,000,000 you can't please everyone. As free citizens we are allowed to vote and compromise on certain issues and things that could forever change the way we live. With so many American citizens, with so many points of views and opinion, you can not expect to fully agree with everything that happens in our country. You are forced to compromise. It's just how a free nation works. There have been times in the past where the country has been split in two. The Civil War for example, was a time when brother was fighting brother and you were literally forced to think upon your neighbor as an enemy. We are all American and though we might not believe in the same values or virtues we have to accept and compromise with our fellow citizens. If we don't we'd have anarchy, chaos, and war. Freedom is obtained and secured by understanding and compromising.

After everything else, there is a certain conviction that a diverse nation thrives upon, open-mindedness. Without accepting and educating ourselves on other people's opinions we can not understand them and because of that we degrade them and violate what they hold dear. It is nothing but close- mindedness and hatred when some one paints a swastika on a synagogue wall, or ridicules someone for wearing a head veil. Not only does open-mindedness eliminate hatred but it keeps people from being restricted from certain unalienable rights that we proudly base our country upon. When we do not allow people to do things that as a free nation we promise them, like adopt, vote, or practice the first amendment because of race, religion, gender, sexual ordination. We are showing nothing but ignorance, close- mindedness, and above all allowing certain people's freedom to slowly slip away. Open-mindedness is the one thing that will allow us all too truly except each other and make everyone feel safe and free in this nation.

America has always been a threat to certain countries because of the ideals we uphold and the freedom all our citizens have. The horrible events that have happened in our past shock and sadden us all, but it didn't extinguish our spirit. We hold that spirit to this day because we are free, because we have unalienable rights that can not be taken away by anyone but ourselves. If we do not ensure equality, compromise, and are open-minded we could soon find ourselves destroyed, and the only people to blame would be ourselves.