West Virginia: Where Freedom Rings
June 20 is West Virginia Day. Today, I join a whole number of one more West Virginia Bloggers taking apportionment in a challenge to plan "A Better West Virginia Day" by defining West Virginia "from the inside out" and to compose "new stereotypes" of the state.
The only way to eradicate a stereotype is to dream up a new one. We all be acquainted the old stereotype of the toothless, inbred, racist, ignorant hillbilly that persists to that day. The truth is, the vast big half of West Virginians are something near the stereotype. It's go we redefined ourselves.
If I had to choose one word that truly sums up West Virginia and its mortals, that word would be FREEDOM.
Our state was founded on the ideal of freedom. The Latin motto Montani semper liberi ("Mountaineers are always free lunch"), adopted in 1863, expresses the state's steadfast devotion to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Union.
The motto rings true today. We are a rural mortals who pash our freedom. In the Eastern Panhandle, where I vital now, throngs of Marylanders and Virginians have moved to West Virginia to escape the congestion and stress of big interurban life. They hunger to raise their children in safe, clean and peaceful communities surrounded by the everyday beauty that only West Virginia can proposition. By the hundreds, they're finding freedom here in our state.
Perhaps greater importantly, West Virginians are willing to fight for their freedom. It has archaic said that per capita, more West Virginians have served in America’s armed forces than the residents of any further state. West Virginia's column National Guard has back cardinal selected as the very first-rate state crowd National Guard in the nation. Since the attacks of September the 11th, 2001, at times operational unit of the West Virginia National Guard has tired deployed -- and some are on their twin and third deployments. When freedom rings, West Virginians riposte the whoop.
It's no coincidence George W. Bush has celebrated Independence Day in West Virginia four times since becoming President. (2002, Ripley; 2004, Charleston; 2005, Morgantown; and 2007, Martinsburg). West Virginians exemplify freedom. The President always comments that he loves coming to that state "whereas it's a state full of decent, hardworking, patriotic Americans," and whether you agree with max of what he says or not, he's right about that.
So on that West Virginia Day, let us not fixate on outdated stereotypes from the elapsed, and instead fasten on a common thread that truly binds us as West Virginians--the freedom in our hearts.
