Contemporary American Society

I'm taking a class right now called Contemporary American Society. Yes, ok, what does that mean? The way I like to sum it up is a discussion about the ideals and dreams that American was built on and how we're doing so far.

What I'm learning is that we are straying, and that our country doesn't seem that great to me anymore. Harsh, I know. But after hearing about consumerism, health care, weak unions, exploitation of other countries, homelessness, and our selfishness as a nation? It's hard to think any other way.

As part of this class, we're required to memorize Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. I haven't memorized yet, but I'm excited to. To me, he brings up the idea that we are nation whose ideals are worth fighting for - and I think fighting for them is required, because they're not easy. Lincoln still believed in the States and I'm wanting to, also. It's good to be reminded of what he said:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I wonder what good ol' Abe would do if he saw us now...