'MORE PERFECT' BEST FRIENDS CAN DIFFER IN GREAT NATION.

Byline: Jonathan Dobrer Local View

WHEREVER our ancestors lived in 1776, our current liberty was born on that Fourth of July. Our Founding Fathers and all who worked, fought and died to establish and maintain that liberty deserve to be remembered with a grand birthday party. This is a wonderful nation, and what we have achieved for ourselves and shared with others is unique in world history.

As a liberal, I know that my patriotism is often suspect. We liberals have allowed ourselves to be painted, really tarred, as the less-patriotic movement. But it is not true. Liberals have worked hard to spread the core values of our nation to the less powerful, both at home and abroad. Most of us consider ourselves to be true patriots. I say ``true patriots,'' and not ``the true patriots,'' because there is no exclusivity here. Our great American eagle needs two wings to fly - right and left.

There are certainly unpatriotic lunatics on the far left who hate America and find fault with everything we do, everything we try and everything we believe in. They are a tiny, if loud, minority. I know there are also lunatics on the right who may say they love America, but not as it is. They hate the government, the Constitution that protects us and the judiciary that balances the rights of the few against the self-righteous mob. They do not represent true principled conservatives.

Most Americans believe, when we bother to think about what we believe, in the great vision of our founders. They declared independence from England in order to ``establish a more perfect union.'' They did not see England as evil, but only as falling far short of perfection. They didn't believe that America would ever be perfect - only ever ``more perfect.''

Across the political spectrum, patriots still believe in this vision. We believe that there is always room for improvement, and there are always issues on which we can use our energy to make our nation better - better in the larger world and better for each of our fellow citizens. The work of our continuing creation is never finished.

We have a lot to celebrate.

We have fought wars to preserve our union and to free our citizens. We have given generously of our lives and our fortunes to preserve our sacred honor and not betray or abandon our friends and allies across this wide world. Our grandfathers, our parents, our brothers and now our sons and daughters have fallen in fields of battle from Normandy to Sicily, from Injon to the Mekong Delta, from Iwo Jima to Kesserine, from San Juan Hill to Baghdad.

There is not a single foreign land where we have stayed to maintain an empire after we have spilled our precious blood. From France to Germany, from Japan to Kuwait, we came, we saw and, yes, we conquered - and then we left.

Remarkable and unique, laudable and honorable.

We have had our growing pains, but we have grown nonetheless. When our founders wrote, ``All men are created equal,'' they meant white male property owners. While many of them did not envision that someday this would include blacks, Native Americans, people without property and women, still they left our Constitution open to increasingly generous interpretations. Like my grandmother picking out the suit for my Bar Mitzvah, they believed that there should be room to grow. We have room. (And the suit still fits!)

We do not have a perfect union, but it is more perfect than in the past, and it will become still more perfect because of our own dedication and work. To see and acknowledge our room for growth is not to forget or negate our greatness.

To criticize is not to lack patriotism. Yes, self-hatred is unpatriotic, but indifference is nearly as bad. Those who fight vigorously for their vision of a better America are not enemies, even when they work against each other.

During the turbulent 1960s, when I was a student at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, I naturally participated in many demonstrations. My closest friend was another young grad student, a Franciscan friar. We often drove to demonstrations together. Sometimes we marched with each other. Sometimes we marched against each other. We always drove home together as friends who believed that we needed to work for a more perfect union, friends who didn't always agree on what would get us there more quickly. We were friends who never forgot that we were Americans and loved our country.

To oppose a policy, to believe a war is ill-considered, to be involved in great social, moral and political issues: It's all evidence of caring. America is, has been and will always be a place to join with our founders in seeking an ever more perfect union. It is our openness to change and growth that has prevented our Constitution from becoming brittle parchment and turning to dust.

Our country, our values and our Constitution are not to be worshipped from afar, not to be loved in the abstract, but engaged in an intimate and respectful relationship - and intimacy always involves friction, heat, passion, forgiveness and generosity.

At this birthday celebration, I give thanks to a nation that gives me freedom, that still needs me - and you, and all of us - to keep the body politic healthy. And whatever our disagreements are, may we always disagree with the generosity of spirit that would let us go home together and share a meal.

May we remember that all Americans are always in the business of making ours ``a more perfect union.''

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Photo:

(color) Fireworks burst over the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.

Saul Loeb/Knight Ridder