It’s Independence Day in small town USA. The country pride is high.

Outside my window, fireworks crack the sky open. I think of mortars falling, of distant and not-so-distant gunfire. Of countries where there is no such thing as independence. And I think that America is great. I also think that it has grown so great that it no longer remembers why this holiday is so important.

Americans like tout the word freedom as if it is the secret pass-phrase into a superhero hideout. We celebrate our...