On July 4, 2026 Americans celebrated various people for their role in founding this country. We can start with Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin, Henry, and continue debating into the night. Somewhere on the list would be Paine—Robert Treat Paine, a Harvard graduate and signer of the Declaration. And, grudgingly for some, another Paine but without a middle name—Thomas Paine—who lacked any of the usual credentials to be considered a founder.
Happy 250th Birthday Americans and to everyone around the world that shares the original American values of individual rights against government!
When I was a boy, one of my favorite holidays was Independence Day. I was an enthusiastic student of the War for Independence. My favorite book was the How and Why Wonder Book of the American Revolution by Felix Sutton. I spent a lot of my childhood reading about the colonial era, the lives of people like Sam Adams, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington.
With the beginning of the American Revolutionary War at the outbreak of Lexington and Concord, two truths about the Revolution already stand out clearly. One is that the Revolution was genuinely and enthusiastically supported by the great majority of the American population. It was a true people’s war against British rule. The American rebels could certainly not have concluded the first successful war of national liberation in history, a war against the world’s greatest naval and military power, unless they had commanded the support of the American people.
The original opponents of American intervention abroad — the anti-imperialist movement that arose in response to an imperial turn in the late 19th century — were in fact the true inheritors of the republic and its first principles.
The yen’s “prolonged weakness has become a growing headache, inflating the cost of imported raw materials and worsening the squeeze on households...”
