Happy 237th birthday, America

Get out the barbecue pit and throw a couple of wieners on the grill.

It’s officially America’s 237th birthday.

On Thursday, the finest nation in the world will celebrate another year in its illustrious history.

We’ve sure come a long way since our earliest days – there’s no doubt about that.

It sure would be interesting to see the looks on our Founding Father’s faces if they could be here today to enjoy the celebration.

Surely they had no idea when founding America that in the year 2013, people would speak in 140 characters. That is, of course, when they weren’t sharing their opinions on something called Facebook.

Of course, we’d also have to tell them that when we say ‘speak’, we don’t mean literal spoken words. We, of course, mean text typed through a phone that landed on a computer screen through invisible cyber waves that we can’t see in the sky.

Politically, it is also interesting to consider the opinions of our nation’s creators when celebrating this Fourth of July holiday.

The USA was founded on an ideal of equality and freedom – that people would be able to speak freely, worship freely and live a happy, prosperous life.

But are those ideals still fully in place?

Lawfully, of course they are. Hopefully, they always will be.

But it appears there is now a little more gray area than originally intended.

Instead of a political system where fresh ideas serve the greater good, modern government is dominated by the letters ‘D’ and ‘R’.

Those on the ‘D’-Team support policies created by their constituents. The same can be said for those on the other side.

The divide has gotten so great that even some of the simplest issues turn into political gridlock.

The president’s approval ratings are at an all-time low, and a recent survey showed that 70 percent of Americans distrust the government.

Those numbers are alarming but are not entirely surprising.

So as we enjoy a happy and festive Fourth, let’s not lose sight of why America was created.

We’ve come a long way, no doubt.

But there still is work yet to do.