NO NEWS IS... – AT 9:33 P.M. ET:  Unless someone plans to attack us, July 4th weekend is very slow on news.  Stuff happens overseas, where July 4th is just another day, but the usual headliners seem to stay home, maybe realizing the American media is operating light for three days.

So maybe it's a good time to reflect on the title of the holiday we're about to mark.  It's Independence Day.  Not Freedom Day.  Not rights day.   Independence day.  Whenever July 4th is mentioned, Americans understandably reflect on their freedoms.  That's fine.  But we sometimes forget the "independence" part.  America would not be America if it were not independent.  We run our own country, we have our own foreign policy.  We control, more or less, our own economy.

And yet there are some Americans, headquartered largely in universities and the media, who kind of frown on this "independence" thing.  They used to be called "one worlders," although the one worlders simply wanted greater American engagement with the world.  The people I'm talking about think a chunk of our foreign policy should be handed over to "international" institutions like the UN, and that we should be subject to "international" scrutiny like, say, Iran.  Our Supreme Court, they think, should employ foreign laws at times.  They haughtily reject American exceptionalism, which is nothing more, or less, than the notion that we have a unique standing in history, which we emphatically do.

These people are wrong.  They dream of an America that is more like Europe, all the while ignoring that Western Europe is in decline, economically strapped, culturally compromised, and defended by paper-think armies.  They think there's nothing special about America, while, every day, they enjoy all the things that make the country special. 

If we lose our independence, if we refuse to insist that immigrants become Americans in every sense, we will lose the uniqueness that makes up the American character.  We have not historically been called the last great hope of mankind for no reason.  We are that hope, if only we can, in the face of trendy pressures, hang onto it.

July 2, 2011