America, How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

This Fourth of July, this Independence Day, I know that it may be hard for many people to declare their love for our country. But she has never needed us and our unembarrassed, real patriotism more.

The American democracy will not die. We will defend it. We will continue to lift up the old American values and celebrate the true American heritage. We will take heart from the precious legacy of self-government, defended and bequeathed to us by our forebears, and from their own struggles to achieve a country that lives up to the true meaning of our American creed. We will call on the great decency that still lies at the heart of our people.

And we will win.

We love this land so much. We love it for the still-revolutionary ideals that gave it birth. We love it for the continuing, brave struggle to make those ideals a reality for all of us. We love the shadows and sorrows of our history, for they have watered the springs of reform, spurred the advance of justice, down through the years; they are our teachers, and we love them for it. We love America for her constant, capacious embrace of the new, every generation so different from the previous generations in so many ways; every generation adding to the language, the music, the taste and style and faiths and fads and wisecracks and passions of our country. We love the land. This land, this land that, as one of our great poets so truly sang, is my land, your land, belonging to each and every one of us as birthright and homeland, wherever we are from. (I write this looking out at a sparkling lake in Northern Michigan. What part America have you fallen in love with?)

We love this land so much.

And so, in this dark hour, on this 249th Fourth of July, what a joy, what a privilege it is to be an American and to be called on to defend our beautiful, baffling, noble, disappointing, ever-becoming, ever-amazing America.

This is our opportunity to give back to her, in gratitude and fearlessness and joy. We are happy warriors for this land we love.

And we will win.