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America has had a mission for 400 years now. That mission is to seek to develop a place in which people from varied backgrounds can come together under the banner of freedom. That was and is our mission in the world: to be the great experiment of freedom.

This dream was originally born on European soil, when for decades wars were conducted for kingdoms and territory. The aristocracies of Europe dreamed of the type of domination and grandeur that was seen in the archetype of the Roman Empire.

Conquerers came to the American continent with the hope of obtaining the freedom that riches can buy.

French traders came for the fishing and fur trade.

Religious sects came to find freedom to seek God in the way that they understood to be correct. This was a revolutionary concept, considering the fact Anabaptists, catholics, Jews, Muslims, and protestants of all sorts were persecuted by someone and those who chose a different path were persecuted by everyone.

America's mission has often been obscured by the facts of history.

The fact that America allowed slavery to continue as long as it did. The fact that the people who were here before the Europeans were lied to by the United States government.

Yet in Africa today there is black on black tribal strife. Among the native peoples of the Americas, there was tribal violence native on native. In America we continue to walk a delicate balance between individualism, tribalism and nationalism. Each of us have a heritage that came from somewhere. Each individual in America has the freedom to choose to be the way his parents/ancestors are/were, or to mark out a new direction for oneself. Each of us have the privilege of honoring our ethnicity, but we do not have the right to brutally impose our ethnic bias on anyone else. Likewise as a nation we can be a beacon of freedom, but we cannot legislate freedom for anyone else. Nor can we impose an American life on anyone else.

This is where the American mission has and will continue to go astray. America cannot and should not be the arbitrator of freedom to the rest of the world. In the power vacuum of crumbling European empires at the turn of the twentieth century, American stepped in to be the colonial force for good and for freedom. In her role as world leader America needs to continue to stand for those things that continue to make America great:

1. America needs to stand for the freedom of the press throughout the world. This includes keeping the Internet free from government censorship.
2. America needs to stand for freedom of religion. Persecution of house church Christians by the Chinese government.
3. America needs to stand in opposition to ethnic cleansing and genocide.
4. America needs to stand for the rights of minorities.
5. America needs to stand for the protection of those who are the least of our world.

America needs to continue to stand for these principles at home, as well as abroad. We need to be concerned for disabled veterans in this country. We need to be concerned about the handicapped, the poor, those without health insurance. We need to be most concerned about those who are able to contribute to the least back to our society. This is most important because that which makes the beacon of freedom shine the brightest is the fact that the weakest and the poorest in the United States live a better life than their ancestors left when they departed from Europe, Asia, Africa and other parts of the world.

Learn more about this author, Dan Nieman.
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