Happy Fourth of July!

The only people who seem not to understand the worldwide significance of American society are our own intelligentsia. To them the Fourth of July is at best an embarrassment, if not something to sneer at. The flag-waving, the proud speeches and the Horatio Alger stories are just part of a nationalist "myth," as far as the intellectuals are concerned.

They could not be more wrong. The prosperity that we -- and they -- enjoy today is in large part a product of many, many real-life Horatio Alger stories about ordinary people who rose from humble circumstances to achieve success for themselves by creating a more abundant life for millions of other Americans. ...No wonder the Fourth of July makes the intelligentsia uncomfortable. It celebrates the
revolution that gave ordinary people freedom from the rampaging presumptions of their "betters."
--Thomas Sowell