I love Chicago. It’s where I was born and raised. I have family and long-time friends in the area. It can be a nice place to live (except for winter). I am big fan of (most of) the sports teams. As my wife – who is not from here – has noted, Chicagoans have an unusually strong affinity for the place.

Daniel Lipinski. Courtesy photo.

For some of the same reasons I love Chicago, I love America. Roots, family and friends, homeland pride. These are important. But there is something deeper about my feelings for my country. America was not founded upon an ethnicity, race, language, or religion, but a set of venerable principles. This makes it especially worthy of devotion as well as sacrifice.

Identification as a “Chicagoan” is meaningful to me. In fact, I won’t characterize someone as a Chicagoan if they don’t fit my criteria, including only having moved to the city later in life. However, I am very happy to call an immigrant an American if he or she is devoted to our ideals and goes through the citizenship process.

The American principles I refer to are contained in the Declaration of Independence, whose 249th anniversary of ratification we will celebrate on July 4th. As we approach this date, it is a good to time for our divided country to reflect upon the unifying words of this foundational document.

“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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

While most Americans have developed a vague sense that America stands for freedom, few think deeply about the full meaning of these two sentences.