Oleg Volk
Moderator Emeritus
A Letter to the Americans
by Boris Karpa
I am not an American. Yet, when it’s Fourth of July, I cannot but wish I were one. This short letter is my expression of thanks to the Americans for what the world owes them._Now, of course we owe America lots of things – from the Land Lease, to the 1973 air-lifts to Israel, to such small things as technical innovations like the airplane or the Internet. But this letter is not about economics, the politics, or technological progress. This is about the single most precious thing Americans are continously giving to the world: FREEDOM.
Yes, technically, Brits imported it into America with the Colonists, but America was the first country ever that was founded on the concept of Freedom. The first country ever, on the face on the Earth, whose very foundation, basis, and lifeblood, is the belief that all people “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rightsâ€. Nowhere else on the planet did a nation put that in their founding documents.
The Americans are the ones that created and exported the notion that people are born free. That is the difference between America, and, say, the EU. The Americans believe it’s wrong to violate freedom of speech. Just plain wrong. Immoral. According to the very documents upon which America rests, you are born with the right to free speech. Nobody can take it away and stay withing moral boundary’s. According to the European government, taking your speech away is OK, you just need a “justificationâ€.
This belief is what differentiates Americans from the Europeans. That is why the Americans, time and time again, fight for freedom. It is in memory of that the French – not the French government – gave the Americans the Statue of Liberty. And it is in remembrance of the principle of liberty – that people are born free, that life and liberty are yours and nobody can take them way – that the torch burns.
That torch is lit with the same fire that lit the gunpowder in the Rebel’s rifles at Lexington and Concord. It is the same fire that burned in the hearts of MLK as he marched to Washington. When the Jews at Warsaw lit Molotov’s cocktails to throw at the Germans, I’m sure they were lighting them with Liberty’s Torch too. When the Jews had to bring food through Shaar-HaGay to Jerusalem, firing Thompsons through the truck windows, I’m sure it’s the fire of Liberty that lit the gunpowder in the cartridges and blazed out of the flash suppressors.
The fire of Liberty – the power of the independent mind – is what took the Wright Brother’s off theground and what put Bill Gates online. It was that fire that burned in the hearts of the Marines at Iwo Jima and the rebels at Fort Henry. From Athens, Tenessee to the launch sites in the Mojave desert, that fire is what burn in the American motor. It is what keeps America going. And that is why I hope, one day, to be an American.
There is one birthday wish I would like, however, to make for the Americans this Fourth of July – on behalf of all those, who, like me, can only look at Lady Liberty’s torch with hope that, one day, they will, too, be free. Americans, please keep that fire on for us.
(c)2004 Boris Karpa
by Boris Karpa
I am not an American. Yet, when it’s Fourth of July, I cannot but wish I were one. This short letter is my expression of thanks to the Americans for what the world owes them._Now, of course we owe America lots of things – from the Land Lease, to the 1973 air-lifts to Israel, to such small things as technical innovations like the airplane or the Internet. But this letter is not about economics, the politics, or technological progress. This is about the single most precious thing Americans are continously giving to the world: FREEDOM.
Yes, technically, Brits imported it into America with the Colonists, but America was the first country ever that was founded on the concept of Freedom. The first country ever, on the face on the Earth, whose very foundation, basis, and lifeblood, is the belief that all people “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rightsâ€. Nowhere else on the planet did a nation put that in their founding documents.
The Americans are the ones that created and exported the notion that people are born free. That is the difference between America, and, say, the EU. The Americans believe it’s wrong to violate freedom of speech. Just plain wrong. Immoral. According to the very documents upon which America rests, you are born with the right to free speech. Nobody can take it away and stay withing moral boundary’s. According to the European government, taking your speech away is OK, you just need a “justificationâ€.
This belief is what differentiates Americans from the Europeans. That is why the Americans, time and time again, fight for freedom. It is in memory of that the French – not the French government – gave the Americans the Statue of Liberty. And it is in remembrance of the principle of liberty – that people are born free, that life and liberty are yours and nobody can take them way – that the torch burns.
That torch is lit with the same fire that lit the gunpowder in the Rebel’s rifles at Lexington and Concord. It is the same fire that burned in the hearts of MLK as he marched to Washington. When the Jews at Warsaw lit Molotov’s cocktails to throw at the Germans, I’m sure they were lighting them with Liberty’s Torch too. When the Jews had to bring food through Shaar-HaGay to Jerusalem, firing Thompsons through the truck windows, I’m sure it’s the fire of Liberty that lit the gunpowder in the cartridges and blazed out of the flash suppressors.
The fire of Liberty – the power of the independent mind – is what took the Wright Brother’s off theground and what put Bill Gates online. It was that fire that burned in the hearts of the Marines at Iwo Jima and the rebels at Fort Henry. From Athens, Tenessee to the launch sites in the Mojave desert, that fire is what burn in the American motor. It is what keeps America going. And that is why I hope, one day, to be an American.
There is one birthday wish I would like, however, to make for the Americans this Fourth of July – on behalf of all those, who, like me, can only look at Lady Liberty’s torch with hope that, one day, they will, too, be free. Americans, please keep that fire on for us.
(c)2004 Boris Karpa
