There are still some vocal conservative Americans out there who think this country would be better off now had we not won our independence from Britain, as if we’d be better off under a monarchy and without a Bill of Rights.

Do I even need to continue pointing out how ridiculously stupid this sentiment is? We wouldn’t have the rights we enjoy today!

To say we’d be better off had we lost our war for independence is tantamount to saying we’d all be better off if England had remained Catholic, or if Oliver Cromwell wouldn’t have won the English Civil War on behalf of Parliament. Maybe the Norman Conquest was a mistake too!

It’s too easy to imagine we are living in the worst of all possible worlds; it’s too easy to look back into past and imagine things could have been better for us had events transpired differently — which is just wrong. I think it’s more constructive for us to be thankful for the positive things that we in fact do have as a result of outcomes in the past.