"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - Declaration of Independence

With this quote, a dream was started. It was a beautiful dream and a unique dream at the time. The birth of this nation came with that quote, and it was the dream of America. Ever since, however, we have deviated from this dream. I'm not trying to sound cynical; I'm being honest. Racism, sexism, greed and nationalism have held us from what our sleeping founding fathers dreamt of when they drafted this nation. As I scroll through various social media today, I see the trampling of the very ideals which formed this nation, those ideals being wielding truth as opposed to ignorance, favoring freedom as opposed to inequality and providing empathy as opposed to excreting blame and slander. When Thomas Jefferson inked out the words quoted above this article, he took our nation's first step towards true freedom and equality for everyone. Ever since, we've run away from this path, scared by change, difference and the cold hard truth. If you seek a better America, I'd recommend that you read this article in entirety and begin by adopting the ideals upon which this nation was founded, including accepting truth.

Our nation is beautiful and massive, containing several areas for tourists from around the world, national parks and sprawling cities, towns and forests which decorate our landscape. It’s important to know how we got this land. The answer is: we stole it. Native Americans were the first inhabitants of these lands, and they were not the savages which you have been taught of by watching Hollywood’s countless films. Natives were sure different from European settlers — in religion, economy, societal construct and government — but they were certainly no lesser. Natives weren’t less intelligent, either. They warned us of the Dust Bowl before we caused it, they taught our first settlers how to plant crops efficiently, and they ultimately helped us survive the first hard years of colonization. The United States gained all of its land through conquest, claiming that it was our "Manifest Destiny" to possess these lands. The various tactics of dehumanization and murder which we used to steal America from the Natives is eerily similar to the process by which Hitler created the Holocaust. Today, we may mock peoples for doing the same things that we have done in the past, all while being completely ignorant of our hypocrisy. That ignorance binds us as a nation.

Everyone talks about slavery, and I can sense that people are growing tired of being reminded of it. I mean, who wants to be told over and over again about the terrible thing that their ancestors did to someone else's? Well, apparently it's the people mass-sharing the false notion that Irish immigrants had it worse than African-American slaves while also not complaining as much as slaves. This sentiment is wrong on several levels. Firstly, slaves were treated much worse than indentured servants for three simple reasons. One reason is that indentured servants were not bound for life. Another reason is that indentured servants were receiving something in exchange for their service. One other reason is that indentured servitude was an agreement between two consenting parties.

It's also interesting that people use other minority groups' struggles in an attempt to discredit the complaints of minority groups. Hey, stop protesting about how you're being treated, because this guy's ancestors had it much worse than yours and didn't say a word! Yeah, no. Don't do that. Immigrants did have it bad, though, which is why it's dually frustrating to see people meaninglessly comparing them to slaves. It's like comparing Stephen King to Shakespeare. Yes, Stephen King is a great writer, but Shakespeare is Shakespeare. Immigrants were often crammed in slums, lacked educational and professional opportunities and were targeted in things like the Red Scare as well as by strict immigration laws. All of this being said, their fight for rights ultimately went easier than that of blacks in the US because they were never slaves and were never viewed as property. Because they didn't have to push as hard as blacks for their rights, we don't hear as much about their struggles for rights and in turn we think they didn't ever struggle.

One last attitude that I've been alarmed to notice is that people are trying to block change from occurring in our nation. To an extent, this is natural, because humans generally aren't crazy about change. Beyond that extent, it's ridiculous. Saying things like "if you don't like it here, get out" is pretty un-American, because the entire idea of a republic is that we're supposed to have a government which protects the rights of its inhabitants. Representatives represent your interests, and they fight for your desires in the government. So why do we think that our way of life is supposed to be rigid and unchanging? Did our founders believe in stagnant government? No, they held a revolution to separate from British rule and then they adopted the Articles of Confederation, and then they didn't like that and they changed the entire government to that under the Constitution. Since then, amendments and laws have brought about even more fine-tunes to our rights and liberties. Change isn't bad, because it offers us to take what we learn over the years and integrate it into our ways of life. Don't resent change, embrace it and make it as positive as possible.

America isn't the greatest country on earth, because the greatest never have time to flaunt their victories and their achievements, but rather exist in a constant state of hard work to upkeep their successes and fight against the ease of accepting less. The great never forget their failures, but use them to learn and to become greater. The great never grow lazy, never get comfortable and never think they have done enough. America might have been great at one point, but we must become greater. We must grow, learn and adapt to become what our parents foresaw hundreds of years ago, to become a success, to complete the dream: the dream of the oppressed, the dream of the weak, the dream of the poor, the dream of our founding fathers, the dream of the patriots, the dream of the rebels, the dream of America.