We honor founding fathers such as Washington and Jefferson for their ideals of individual rights and freedom, even if we as a country still struggle to live up to those ideals.
Like all of us, they are products of the time they lived in who, never the less, shone a light forward .
We only debate issues such as racial equality, and gay rights today because of the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
No such debate is going on in Iran or Saudi Arabia.