Independence Day - Not "the fourth"

This weekend is American Independence Day. As always, I'm a bit on my soapbox about people who reduce the importance of the holiday by referring to it as "the fourth" or just "July 4th". Many of these same people would be offended if we called Christmas "the 25th" or even their birthday by it's date.

We are a proud country, and even with the inevitable mistakes in our past, we have done great things as a people. We should celebrate the birth of our democracy and remember this as the beginning of our Independence and the beacon of freedom the United States became.

A Nation’s Strength

by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904)

What makes a nation’s pillars high
And its foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.

Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.

And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.

Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor’s sake
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly...
They build a nation’s pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.