Readers Write

Define values that unify America

Re: “America at 250: Adams, Jefferson disagreed to the end on Revolution’s meaning,” by Marianne Holdzkom.

I fully support the author’s statement that we need to “exemplify the capacity for people to disagree and yet work for a common cause.”

Unfortunately, as a country, we have moved in a direction where the relevance and value of the “united” part of the United States of America seems to be disappearing.

Our politicians, government representatives, media and other people in the public arena spend their time endlessly debating and deriding each other’s ideas and values.

Across the aisle in Congress, a futile conversation. No one wins. Government shuts down, everyone loses.

Where, and what, is the common cause to guide our tough decisions?

Where are the common causes that will benefit the 99% of our people, as well as the 1% high-income folks?

In an ever-changing world, we must define the unifying values that uphold the hopes of our forefathers, and how that translates 250 years later, in order for the USA to celebrate a shared and fulfilling future for all of us.

CHRISTINE WREN, CUMMING

Brave ancestors built the bedrock of this nation

Although a typical American kid, it wasn’t until I was an adult, after my 15 years of military service, that I became interested in the history of the American Navy, and then the entire history of our country, and then even further back to the beginning of recorded world history.

I think there were two most-defining moments of this nation’s independence.

The first was the ability of our Founding Fathers to somehow lead a group of separate colonies (with different ambitions) to not only go to war against the most powerful nation on Earth, but to win against tremendous odds.

The second was the insight and courage of President Abraham Lincoln to see the absolute importance of maintaining an undivided nation. Without the unified resources of this land — the bold, strong people of both the Union and the Confederate States of America, as well as the tremendous natural reserves (that every major nation envied and tried to capture for their own) — there is no doubt in my mind that there would be no USA today.

Righteously proud Americans should not forget that our freedoms from 1776 were built from thousands of years of brave human endeavors, all the way back to ancient Athens and before.