I was explaining to a few Australian friends how I have to buy my soda with real sugar in it as a rare novelty. Because here in America, the land of the free, there’s a tax on sugar such that they use corn syrup in regular soda. I wasn’t very proud of America at that moment.

But shortly later, on Independence Day, I did feel proud of America. America the *idea*, that is. Because more than anything else, (and more than any *where* else) America is an idea.

Whatever is left of that idea today, it existed once. And it still exists, as an idea. That, at least, is worth celebrating.