J.D. Tuccille: A glorious, 250-year-old republic of freedom

Fireworks explode over the Statue of Liberty in celebration of the anniversary of its dedication on October 28, 2011 in New York City. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Article content

COTTONWOOD, Arizona — For Americans, this year’s Independence Day is special. It’s the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Though internally divided and beset by political violence, America remains the only country based on the primacy of individual liberty. Despite its flaws, the U.S. is overall freer than other nations and prospers from that freedom. Americans may not be able to attend the same celebrations without grumbling and glaring at one another, but we all have something in common worth celebrating.

Article content

Article content

Two hundred and fifty years ago, in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Article content

Article content

Article content

Decades later, after serving as the third president of the United States, Jefferson expanded on a founding principle of the nation in an 1819 letter: “rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’; because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”

Article content

The U.S. continues as a nation founded in liberty and forever on guard for government intrusions.

Article content

In his textbook, American Society, which has gone through multiple editions, the late sociologist Robin M. Williams, Jr., wrote that “American ‘individualism,’ taken in broadest terms, has consisted mainly of a rejection of the state and impatience with restraints upon economic activity.”

Article content

Article content

Rejection of the state and wariness of the tyrant’s will remain part of the American character. Pew Research found that only 17 per cent of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing almost always or most of the time in its fall 2025 survey. That’s not quite an all-time low — that would be the 15 per cent trust reported in 2011 — but it’s pretty close.

Article content

Emphasizing individual liberty, free markets and hostility to the state works well for us. Americans are not just more prosperous than the citizens of most nations; we’re pulling even further ahead. The Economist reported earlier in June that Europeans visiting the U.S. to attend World Cup games are astonished by “the mass affluence of America’s suburbs.” The piece added, “the American wealth enticing holidaymakers troubles European elites. America, once a peer, seems to be racing ahead.”

Article content

Drawing on World Bank data, EconoFact points out that “accounting for population, EU GDP per capita as a percentage of U.S. GDP per capita fell from 76.5 per cent in 2008 to 50 per cent in 2023.”

Article content