Yo, Parish Orphans and Retrogrades, to the sequel episode of

Why is the Fourth of July such a depressing holiday?

I'm forgetting if that's exactly what we called it, and I'm suspecting I didn't call

the first part that, but that's what it is.

When we say July the 4th is a dead letter of a celebration, I once saw

a great meme on Facebook and it went like this. There's a grandfather and his grandson watching

Fourth of July fireworks and the grandson asks the grandfather, what are we celebrating today? And the

grandfather says that this was at one point a great country. That's what it is. That's all we're

celebrating on July 4th. And in the first video, done earlier today, I've never done two sequel

videos in one day. I'll explain that in a second.

I explained to you how America is in the midst of our third constitutional regime. The first from

1776 to 1788 was called the Articles of Confederation. And it was purely confederated.

Now you know what that term was.

I'd say the best, the closest thing to the approximation

that the Catholic intellectual tradition gives

for what counts as really good government.

The second constitutional regime was part consolidated, part confederated in Imperial, Imperium

and Imperial.

It went from 1888 or 1791 until 1868.

That is the ratification of the new constitution together with its Bill of Rights, which took three

years, until the ratification, illegal ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868. This was

Lincoln's dream, and it was illegally ratified. It's a done deal.

...