I am not afraid to say that I love America. I am blessed to live and raise my children in the best country in the world. It may not be politically correct to say that these days, which I will never understand. But I will say it proudly and often as long as I live. I was born an American, but my grandparents were from Italy, Germany and Ireland. And that is part of what makes this country such an amazing place to live-the people who come here, live here, pursue happiness here, and find failure and success.

What makes America great is the freedom we have, the liberty we all take for granted. In America, we each have a voice, and each of our voices matter. I never talk politics in this column and I won’t start today. We may completely disagree on politics, but I think we could all agree that having the freedom to disagree, vote and support candidates we believe in is part of what makes America great.

I am not sure when loving America became a bad thing. When being patriotic became shameful. But it seems that it has, and for that I am sorry.

On July 4, 1776, our founding fathers wrote these words: “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.”

Read those words carefully, friend. Our rights do not come from people. Our rights do not come from governments. Our rights are unalienable and they are endowed to us by our Creator. And we are not guaranteed happiness, simply the freedom to pursue happiness. I think that is a big distinction.

Anything that you think may be wrong in our country today becomes your burden to change, and that is another blessing in America. The Declaration of Independence states that the power our government holds is derived from “the consent of the governed.” That is you and that is me. We are the change that is needed for tomorrow, we hold the power. We hold all of the cards.

And we have the freedom to make that change.

To succeed, and maybe to fail.

And that brings me to another thing that makes America great- the opportunity to fail. Without the opportunity to fail, we may never fully succeed. Failure tells us what not to do, and that is what leads us toward success. Edison invented the light bulb only after hundreds of failures in his life. Edison was fired by the telegraph office, lost money on an investment in a cement company and an iron company. Ford’s first company failed completely, and he once stated, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

I am not afraid to say that I love America. I am blessed to live and raise my children in the best country in the world. In America we have the freedom to live life as we desire, and worship God without anyone telling us we can’t. In America, we have liberty, and that opens the door for the excellence within us all. And that individual excellence is what makes our country great!

God bless America - Happy 4th of July!