1
00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:04,640
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. For earlier access to these episodes, access

2
00:00:04,680 --> 00:00:08,160
Speaker 1: to Ask Me Anything sessions, and extended breakdowns of historical

3
00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:12,760
Speaker 1: and current events. Please consider joining our Warning Premium community

4
00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:27,680
Speaker 1: by clicking the link in the description to this episode.

5
00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:33,839
Speaker 1: The Meaning of Independence Day. This Tuesday, July fourth, twenty

6
00:00:34,120 --> 00:00:39,000
Speaker 1: twenty three, marks the two hundred and forty eighth anniversary

7
00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:44,600
Speaker 1: of the independence of the United States of America. On

8
00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:50,199
Speaker 1: that night, Americans across a vast geography will look up

9
00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:54,720
Speaker 1: into the sky at fireworks marking the occasion. They are

10
00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:58,880
Speaker 1: the fulfillment of a wish. The wish came from one

11
00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:04,120
Speaker 1: of our founders, a brilliant, talented, passionate man who could

12
00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:11,680
Speaker 1: be brittle, easily provoked, arrogant, and occasionally distempered. John Adams

13
00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:16,240
Speaker 1: said he hoped quote Independence Day will be the most

14
00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:21,880
Speaker 1: memorable epic in the history of America. I am apt

15
00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:25,720
Speaker 1: to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations

16
00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:31,040
Speaker 1: as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be solemnized

17
00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:36,280
Speaker 1: with pomp and parade, with shoes, games, sports guns, bells, bonfires,

18
00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:40,920
Speaker 1: and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other.

19
00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:48,240
Speaker 1: From this time forward, forever more. End quote. This is

20
00:01:48,520 --> 00:01:55,000
Speaker 1: our day. We all share it together equally, for we

21
00:01:55,120 --> 00:02:00,880
Speaker 1: are all Americans. Together, we are citizens of a republic

22
00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:06,800
Speaker 1: that has endured through two hundred and forty eight years

23
00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:13,560
Speaker 1: of challenge, heartbreak, triumph, loss and justice, war, suffering, and turmoil.

24
00:02:15,320 --> 00:02:19,080
Speaker 1: When the Revolutionary War was won, there were three million

25
00:02:19,120 --> 00:02:27,440
Speaker 1: Americans and only thirteen states, seven hundred thousand people were enslaved.

26
00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:34,320
Speaker 1: Today there are three hundred and thirty four million of us.

27
00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:39,079
Speaker 1: We are the descendants of both the founding generation and

28
00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:43,880
Speaker 1: the peoples of every nation on the Earth. The United

29
00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:48,080
Speaker 1: States of America is the only nation on the planet

30
00:02:48,639 --> 00:02:52,200
Speaker 1: that is made up of all of the peoples of Earth,

31
00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:58,760
Speaker 1: where every known language is spoken. Every day. Together, the

32
00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:07,120
Speaker 1: American people and the American civilization have fed, cured, liberated, protected,

33
00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:11,200
Speaker 1: and done more general good in the world than all

34
00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:15,320
Speaker 1: of the other nations combined since the beginning of time.

35
00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:25,320
Speaker 1: Freedom in America means tolerance. It means freedom of speech, conscience, worship,

36
00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:34,200
Speaker 1: and thought. It also means responsibility and obligation. Freedom is

37
00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:41,000
Speaker 1: a nonsense word without those words. July fourth marks a

38
00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:47,480
Speaker 1: milestone of human imagination and daring. It proclaims the possibility

39
00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:52,920
Speaker 1: of a new birth of freedom and dignity for the

40
00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:59,200
Speaker 1: human being. It also lays bare the contradictions and hypocrisies

41
00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:05,200
Speaker 1: of ours founding, while being an incandescent beacon in a

42
00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:12,000
Speaker 1: moment that utterly and forever ruptured history. The birth of

43
00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:15,440
Speaker 1: the United States of America marks the beginning of an epoch.

44
00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:22,920
Speaker 1: It was the start of a stupendous and unfolding story that,

45
00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:29,320
Speaker 1: like all great stories, is made in parts from pain, joy, myth,

46
00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:38,800
Speaker 1: triumph and failure, good and evil, hypocrisy and contradiction. The

47
00:04:38,839 --> 00:04:43,720
Speaker 1: story of America is the story of imperfect human beings

48
00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:49,840
Speaker 1: forging ahead into the next moment on an unexplored frontier.

49
00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:54,840
Speaker 1: It is the story of the pioneer. It is a

50
00:04:54,920 --> 00:05:01,080
Speaker 1: story about the battle between idealism and cynicism, between right

51
00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:09,040
Speaker 1: and wrong, between good and evil, between justice and injustice.

52
00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:15,400
Speaker 1: More than anything, it is a love story. Government of

53
00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:22,880
Speaker 1: the people, by the people, for the people is a

54
00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:28,080
Speaker 1: relatively new concept in the annals of human history. It

55
00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:35,120
Speaker 1: was an utterly radical idea in seventeen seventy six, and

56
00:05:35,160 --> 00:05:41,239
Speaker 1: then there was a thunderclat there were perfect words laid

57
00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:47,919
Speaker 1: down on paper by a deeply imperfect man they declared

58
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:54,840
Speaker 1: something remarkable that had never been said before. The men

59
00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:58,720
Speaker 1: who signed the document containing them believed it likely they

60
00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:04,479
Speaker 1: were signing their death work rance. These words are transcendent,

61
00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:08,960
Speaker 1: and it is what we celebrate on the night of

62
00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:17,360
Speaker 1: July fourth, with gratitude and joy and the immense responsibility

63
00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:24,840
Speaker 1: for their preservation and for their expansion to the last

64
00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:32,719
Speaker 1: places where they have not yet reached. All men are

65
00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:39,200
Speaker 1: created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with

66
00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:48,960
Speaker 1: certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and

67
00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:55,280
Speaker 1: the pursuit of happiness. Some may say that there is

68
00:06:55,360 --> 00:07:01,000
Speaker 1: injustice and deep corruption in our society, and or those

69
00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:07,960
Speaker 1: words are meaningless and shouldn't be celebrated. Those voices could

70
00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:14,600
Speaker 1: not be more wrong. American citizenship means having the privilege

71
00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:21,320
Speaker 1: to assert that God given rights to fix what is broken,

72
00:07:22,320 --> 00:07:27,440
Speaker 1: and to perfect the union that endures as an idea, experiment,

73
00:07:28,280 --> 00:07:35,760
Speaker 1: and promise. Where are we going? What lies ahead? Well,

74
00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:39,200
Speaker 1: it is hard to know through the temporary sound and

75
00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:44,120
Speaker 1: fury of division and tumult. Yet we know we know

76
00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:50,600
Speaker 1: where it ends. Martin Luther King Junior told us he

77
00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:56,520
Speaker 1: would ahead over the horizon to a vast valley of

78
00:07:56,760 --> 00:08:01,880
Speaker 1: justice in a free society where long last, the promise

79
00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:07,560
Speaker 1: of the American Revolution had been fulfilled for every American.

80
00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:16,640
Speaker 1: Here's what he said. I've been to the mountaintop. I've

81
00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:22,320
Speaker 1: seen the promised Land. I may not get there with you,

82
00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:28,840
Speaker 1: but I want you to know tonight that we, as

83
00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:36,520
Speaker 1: a people will get to the promised Land. We are

84
00:08:37,280 --> 00:08:44,120
Speaker 1: those people, the American people, and our promised land is

85
00:08:44,160 --> 00:08:51,640
Speaker 1: the just society where our values and ideas and ideals

86
00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:59,120
Speaker 1: are lived in our daily lives, in our communities, in

87
00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:03,200
Speaker 1: our states, in our cities, in our small towns and

88
00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:09,920
Speaker 1: rural communities, from sea to shining sea. Let us choose

89
00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:17,280
Speaker 1: to believe Martin Luther King Junior. We all know that

90
00:09:17,320 --> 00:09:22,079
Speaker 1: we can trust him. Let us choose also to believe

91
00:09:22,559 --> 00:09:28,320
Speaker 1: in America, where we know that we can also trust her.

92
00:09:30,120 --> 00:09:35,360
Speaker 1: Let us choose love over hate, in service over complaint.

93
00:09:36,880 --> 00:09:40,000
Speaker 1: Let us choose to take a moment and be grateful

94
00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:51,160
Speaker 1: for the sacrifices, vision, guts, determination, wisdom, and failures of

95
00:09:51,200 --> 00:09:57,240
Speaker 1: our ancestors with the deepest humility. Let us resolve to

96
00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:03,160
Speaker 1: take up the challenges head with gratitude, the gratitude of

97
00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:09,480
Speaker 1: free people who are the authors of tomorrow's story, not

98
00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:16,480
Speaker 1: its prisoners. America is a gift and an idea. It

99
00:10:16,559 --> 00:10:21,640
Speaker 1: is a myth and a contradiction. It is a whisper

100
00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:28,160
Speaker 1: on the wind. It is bluegrass and country music and

101
00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:34,280
Speaker 1: a lawn chair parade in Wolfboro, New Hampshire. Whatever America

102
00:10:34,400 --> 00:10:40,200
Speaker 1: is today, she can and she will become something new

103
00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:54,920
Speaker 1: and better tomorrow. That is what we celebrate. Possibility, hope, justice, freedom,

104
00:10:55,000 --> 00:11:02,920
Speaker 1: God bless America