The Fourth honors the founding of America. It's the anniversary of the day in 1776 that the Declaration of Independence was approved.
The Declaration was important.
It didn't say that America would be the best country because it would have the biggest military, toughest leaders, most government giveaways or tightest borders.
The great innovation that day in Philadelphia was the declaration that the United States would have a limited government, rooted in the idea that every individual has inalienable rights.
In other words, we do not get our rights from government. They already exist. The government's job is to protect our rights.
It's a good thing to say out loud while watching the fireworks with your family.
The world took notice when American colonists told their king: "Bug off. We will trade with you and respect your borders, but no longer will we allow you to rule us." Revolutions in France and elsewhere took their cues from America.
It was America's emphasis on limited government — wanting to make sure no one in government would ever again wield power like that of the British king — that made our revolution the greatest and most lasting success of recent centuries.
Other countries replaced kings and aristocrats with new forms of bureaucracy and tyranny.
France created revolutionary committees that murdered dissenters. Russia replaced its czar with a communist police state that confiscated farms, killing millions.
The U.S. government, by comparison at least, remained humble. It mostly allowed citizens to forge their own destinies and choose where to live, what professions to pursue and what to say and publish, gradually expanding those freedoms to more Americans, not just the white men who were in that room in Philadelphia in 1776.
That freedom to innovate and live as one chooses made us the most prosperous nation on earth.
Let's celebrate that.
The founders had a joyful optimism: Let individuals be free to trade and travel, and they'll take from the best of the world and make something even better.
The optimism was rewarded...
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