Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow Americans!
It still feels very weird to type ‘my fellow Americans’. Sort of like a new pair of shoes, which are very comfortable and look great, but due to their newness still seem a little awkward and tend to squeak if you turn around too fast.
Independence Day is upon us, and is perhaps the holiday about which one would expect me to be most divided; indeed, residual loyalty to Britain does at first glance assert itself.
(Never mind that King George, from whom America famously declared its independence, was about as British as Saddam Hussein – the guy was a German who was only King because his grandfather had once had the strongest of a batch of weak claims to the throne.)
However, for 233 years, America has shone a bright light into the future, leading the way where other nations have trembled and cowered. We – and I can now proudly count myself within this ‘we’ – have had our missteps. Times have not always been easy. We have weathered the storms of economic turmoil, of wars both internecine and international, of nuclear threat and terrorist attack, and we have come through it all carrying the same torch of Liberty and blazing a trail ever forward.
