We're celebrating the wrong day!

Since I can't sleep because of the noise of fireworks, I thought I'd start the blog I've been wanting to start for some time now and get out some of the thoughts that, on other nights, tend to keep me awake.

You might be wondering, why am I not out watching fireworks with the rest of the nation? Is he not patriotic?

I am very much a patriot. I just think we are celebrating the wrong day.

First, most U.S. citizens are taught that we celebrate our independence from England on the day we declared independence in Philadelphia in 1776 — July 4. That is not the day independence was declared. It was declared two days earlier on July 2 but it took two days to make all the changes/edits to the Declaration of Independence that the committee wanted.

That alone does not lead me to believe we are celebrating the wrong day. I have overlooked that bit of information for years. I can live with it.

But using the "birth" analogy, i.e., the birth of the nation, the signing of the Declaration of Independence is really more the point of conception than birth (and we really don't have an American tradition of celebrating conceptions — I guess the conception is celebration enough!)

Instead, the point in which our country was born, i.e., created, is, in my book, the date the Constitution was ratified. Of course, we're never going to get historical scholars to agree on just which date we should use as the official "ratification," because there are several important dates to be considered.

Still, if you view the Constitution as a legal document, there is one, legal date in which our country became ... just became.

June 21, 1788.

That is the date the ninth state, New Hampshire, ratified the Constitution as stipulated in the Constitution itself, thus binding the other states (those who had previously ratified and those who have not) to one another in perpetuity.

Some would argue that had not all 13 original states ratified the Constitution, the new government would not last long. While that is a valid point (and quite possibly spot-on), if we stick to viewing this as a legal document, it only took nine states to create this country of united states.

History aside, that is not the main reason I would prefer to celebrate the birth of our nation as the date the Constitution was ratified as opposed to the date our Founders declared independence.

The main reason is simply that I feel we should respect the rule of law that created this nation and has kept us truly free, over the rule of force that, without a basis in values from deliberative and legal authority, is just tyranny.

There is no question in my mind that the force used in the Revolution was justified. I view it as self-defense — we declared ourselves independent and we defended that independence. (Revolution was how England saw it.)

Celebrating the bravery, sacrifice and determination to keep that independence is certainly warranted. But celebrating it as the birth of our nation glorifies the violence of war and perpetuates the bully's credo: the notion that "might makes right."

Of course, there is an "official" Constitution Day on September 17, commemorating the day in 1787 when thirty-nine delegates signed the Constitution. But I still argue that it still needed to be ratified before it would become the law of the land so the date nearly a year later should stand.

A shift of emphasis, from Independence Day (along with the whoop-ass mentality conjured up in the movie of the same name), onto a "Constitution Day" where we celebrate the reason and enlightenment of the period that has given us a legacy in the form of not just a well-crafted document but a way of life; may also go a long way toward serving to remind us, as a nation, that it is ideals and principles for which we fight.

Next year, I hope to trade my paid Holiday at work from Independence Day (July 4) to Constitution Day on June 21 (about two weeks earlier).

I doubt this will ever become a trend, though.

There are no symbols of Constitution Day that fly in the air and explode in brilliant, colorful lights and sound. No one is going to write a song about the hot summer in Philadelphia where a bunch of old, white, rich guys in wigs and impractically warm clothing shut themselves in a hall (literally behind closed windows and doors) to pen the Constitution.

Constitution Day just isn't going to be as sexy as Independence Day!

But it is the real birthday of our nation.

:-j