The United States is an amazing nation. The opportunity provided by a "new" land, removed from the weight of all the tradition of Western Europe. A chance to create something different. A chance to explore untested ideas about the way people could live. That spirit of adventure and the pride associated with being independent and free to be whomever we chose. We could make ourselves whatever we wanted to be. We could explore the definition of humanity.
We did that. We embraced that. We embodied everything that independance meant. We abandoned the past and redefined what it meant to be a person.
That was our strength. That was our unifying principle.
We decided not to conserve the old ways but to define a new way. We redefined the relationship between a person and their government.
And through that bravery, that exploration, that independent spirit we became the greatest force, culturally, economically and militarily that the world has ever seen.
That is the nation that I love. That is the nation I want to belong to. That is what I am celebrating today.