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Happy Birthday America!

Celebrating the 4th as America's birthday has always seemed a bit iffy to me. The Declaration of Independence was a stab in the dark. Would it work? Could it work? Was it intended as merely a protest to wake up Britian to colonial reform? Did the founding fathers all intend to ultimately make a new country? Was it just talk at first? Then it became a fight. And surprisingly the colonials won. But then what? The Articles of Confederation were a total flop resulting in a small civil war, Shay's Rebellion. The signing of the Constitution might have been the foundation for a new country but it left the slavery question unresolved. I would argue that as a country with a genuine functioning government, America was not fully "born" until the signing at Appomatox.
Granted the factors involved in the civil war weren't minor, but America is far from the only country that didn't govern according the letter of it's founding principles. In your terminology, a lot of country's have had "rebirth" events.

What we should celebrate IMO is the core values and guiding beliefs being set down and always being there to rely on when things go wonky.
 
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