American Optimism

“ We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” - Barack Obama


"Americans. What holds us together? What do all of us have in common?

Love of freedom? Of course. But even deeper than that, the one quality we share is optimism. Think about it. Haven't we always been able to imagine something better - freedom of religion, streets paved with gold? Land of our own for a split-level, a farm or a ranch? We not only imagined it, we had the guts to go for it. Admittedly, the people who came here were often leaving appalling conditions behind. But not everyone did leave. Did all Germany and Ireland empty out during the potato famine? Were the shtetls in Russia deserted after the Kishinev progroms? No. Most stayed.

So think what optimism it took for the people who did make the journey to uproot themselves, to start a new life here. And for so many of those who did not come freely: Look how they not only survived but prevailed. Whether it's nature or nurture that breeds this spirit, we Americans are the children of these rough critters. We have their genes and that quality of theirs that is either confidence or naivete. But we believe in happy endings. We root for the underdog, and if the underdog loses we say, Wait till next year. We truly believe we can discover a Northwest Passage, get to the moon, cure a disease, find true love. And when times are hard and we realize we ourselves will not reach our goal, we have an abiding belief that our children will." - Susan Isaacs, Red, White and Blue

“We're entering our third century now, but it's wrong to judge our nation by its years. The calendar can't measure America because we were meant to be an endless experiment in freedom, with no limits to our reaches, no boundaries to what we can do, no end point to our hopes.” - Ronald Reagan, 40th president.