It’s the Fourth of July. The national birthday party. On this day in 1776 was the official reading of the Declaration of Independence, when the Thirteen Colonies broke from Great Britain and began the process of forming a nation. In the 239 years since we as a people have engaged an ongoing and often contentious, sometimes violent conversation about the one thing we like to say distinguishes us from every other people or nation or country on the globe: Freedom.
Contentious because everyone means something different when they use that word. We do not agree on a common definition. This isn’t a deep, difficult to understand reality, we simply don’t. …