A Toast to the Freest Nation on Earth

Please raise your glasses. And your phones, because someone's definitely live-streaming this.

To America: 250 years young, perpetually arguing, occasionally brilliant, and somehow still here. We were born telling a king where to stick his crown, which is a genuinely remarkable origin story.

To the Founders, who wrote that all men are created equal, even though they meant it more than they practiced it, which at least gave us something to aim for. An ideal.

To freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press. All currently available while supplies last and the federal judges still have courage to protect them. Won't be so sure of SCOTUS, though.

To the Constitution: still standing, slightly dog-eared, and apparently now accepting applications for "advisory king" status. The Founders are spinning in their graves so fast we could power the eastern seaboard.

And finally, to us. The people who inherited or (il)legally inhabited this beautiful, maddening, contradictory experiment. We've survived 250 years of ourselves, which, honestly, is the most impressive thing.

Here's to America: May she always be worth the argument.

[Clinks glass, steps away from microphone, quietly moves to Canada-shaped shadows]

My unofficial challenge is here, if you'd like to play: