Two years ago I wrote this:

American Exceptionalism is an acknowledgment that, of all the countries that sprang up before it, the United States is the exception in human history.  The framers of the U.S. Constitution were brilliant, learned men.  They’d studied the great philosophers like Charles de Montesquieu, John Locke, and Thomas Hobbes, and adopted the principles learned from them into the Constitution. They enshrined in this country’s founding documents first and foremost the God-given rights of the individual. They deliberately limited their own power to govern despite the blood they’d personally shed to achieve liberty from England’s tyranny*. That’s different. That’s the exception.  That’s what’s exceptional.  Prior to the founding of the U.S., the vast majority of human beings were born under tyranny, even slavery.

It’s still relevant. Read the entire post.

Saying, “Happy Memorial Day” never seemed right, considering what we’re commemorating, so I’m glad my family and I were able to go to the Curlew Hills Memory Gardens for a beautiful and moving ceremony. Every other day of the year, gratitude is a difficult attitude to maintain. Today, however, it’s a necessity.