Independence Day

There's a lot this holiday brings to bloggers: skepticism, location-based pride (or scoffing at location based pride), the opportunity to examine national triumphs, the best lead-in to extol the granting of self-determination to colonies still remaining. The Fourth of July on the blogosphere is our nation examined through it's ideals.

And we sit here, far close than we imagine, to the brink of a third imperial exercise in the first decade of this new century. This video, found on a fantastic blog I need to add to my blogroll, is of Ron Paul making a speech in congress. He's intelligent and made as hell, and this time he manages to give his piece with respect for the integrity of the United States original mission, and international law. Watch it, and temper the bleakness of what he his discussing with the fact that the US has a strong tradition of intelligent dissent. At the very least, in history books we can go down as having people strongly object to the mistakes we make in the name of force. We are a nation with strong currents and strong undercurrents, and the record will have us as bitterly divided but well-intentioned. The nature of our nation is a contentious one, and for all it's flaws, at least it lets us have our cake and eat it too.