Truth is messy.

We like the beginning of things, especially big things like nations, to be neat and tidy events, so looking back, we compress them into just such neat narratives. Our histories and memories rely much more on poems we write about our heroes than actual happenings. True beginnings are most often a messy process that scatters and diffuses the points we want to remember. The points remain, just not wrapped in a bow.

July 4th, 2026, we celebrated the 250th anniversary of what? Our nat...