A Toast to the American Experiment

Because the World Has Never Seen Anything Like It...

There’s something about July that sends me down rabbit holes of dusty Federalist Papers and long-forgotten letters between founders arguing over commas in the Constitution. I know, very AP US History of me.

It’s easy to get cynical. To scroll, to shrug, to think, it’s all a mess anyway. But then I remember: we are living inside an experiment that has never been attempted at this scale in human history. An experiment that says your rights are not given by a king, a president, or a crowd’s opinion. They exist because you exist. If God gave you your rights, it’s my duty to protect them simply because you exist along side me.

“A republic, if you can keep it.” – Benjamin Franklin

Is America perfect? No. It’s messy. Loud. Often contradictory. It has chapters we must reckon with, and others we can be fiercely proud of. But it’s also the nation most worthy of devotion—not blind devotion, but the kind that rolls up its linen sleeves and says, we can do better, and we will. It's an odd promise that America makes, one that no other country in the world does and therefore, most of the world does not understand. Hell, sometimes we don't even understand it fully.

The Constitution is only four pieces of parchment, but it’s alive because we are. Because people cared enough to argue, to build, to protect it, to expand its promises to those who were once excluded. It has endured because freedom is a fire that, once lit, is hard to extinguish. It's as complicated a document as it ever was - historically, the first of its kind, to outline the rights of the government and to leave the rest to the individual. The Consent of the Goverened, the right to believe what you want, to say what you want, to ask questions, to rise or to fall of your own merit, not through a pre-ordaned social class, checks and balances, the mere idea of a Constitutional Republic... all these things we take for granted now that were so revolutionary back then.

“Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” The Federalist Papers, No. 9

So tomorrow, I’ll read a few pages of Democracy in America over cold brew, I’ll watch fireworks and think about Alexander Hamilton writing essays under candlelight, and I’ll remember how lucky I am to live in a place that allows me to speak freely, to worship freely, to become who I choose to become.

Today, as every day, I am grateful. For the messiness, the striving, the grand, impossible beauty of the American experiment. For the ideals we haven’t yet fully reached but keep moving toward.

Because freedom is never finished. It’s something we choose, protect, and practice. Happy Independence Day, darling. May your day be full of sunshine, fireworks, and a quiet moment to remember what it all means.