Nearly half of Americans don't understand what we're celebrating for America's 250th anniversary, according to a new poll. Clearly, the festivities aren't about the quality of the country's public schools, since this year marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Something else we should be celebrating, though, is this country's continued legacy of individual liberty. Our freedom may be under threat from people who don't appreciate its value both within and outside the country, but it endures with the support—mostly—of Americans themselves.
Americans May Be Historically Ignorant, but We Love Liberty
"Nearly half (46%) of Americans don't know what America's 250th anniversary commemorates," Emily Ekins reports of a national survey of 2,253 Americans by the Cato Institute, conducted in collaboration with Morning Consult. "A little more than half (53%) correctly answered that it was the adoption of the Declaration of Independence."
The survey also contains good news. Asked "which would you most want children to learn from America's 250th anniversary," the most popular answer chosen is "freedom is rare and must be protected."
Prompted to choose "the top core values and ideas that Americans believe define our country," the most popular pick is "freedom and individual rights."
Seventy percent of respondents say the principles of the country's founding remain relevant today.
The answers square with those of a June AP-NORC poll which found majorities agreeing that the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms are "extremely" or "very" "important to the United States' identity as a nation."
Much is made of popular dissatisfaction with the country's direction and some Americans' lack of enthusiasm for this country—or situational enthusiasm that only comes into to play when their political tribe is in power. And that gloom is sad and concerning. But it's clear that many of us still value the liberty that lies at the core of this country's founding philosophy.
The Country's Strong Protections for Individual Liberty Carry On
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we celebrate on Independence Day.
Decades later, in an 1819 letter, Jefferson emphasized that "rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law'; because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."
Contrast this celebration of liberty over law with the tepid wording of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms which "guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
Any curb on liberty can be justified by a motivated government official. Ultimately, a promise of freedom within laws that are shaped and changed to suit political fashions is no guarantee at all.
And that's what most of the world lives with: no guarantee of freedom. In its most recent annual report, Freedom House noted, "global freedom declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2025."
The United States lost ground in that report, as did so many other countries. But the U.S. remains a haven for free speech even as other nominally liberal democratic countries—most of Europe, for example—abandon the whole idea of discourse unmanaged by the state.
Americans are far from immune to the growth of government and corresponding erosion of freedom around the world. But a majority of Americans still hold dear the value of individual liberty, and that helps keep the reality alive, though constantly under threat.
A Troubling Strain of Tolerance for Authoritarianism
That said, the Cato/Morning Consult survey offered some more troubling news. According to Ekins, "four in 10 Americans think it's acceptable if a president they support stretched the Constitution to get what they want" and "a quarter (25%) say the Constitution should be interpreted more flexibly so government can act more decisively and quickly to solve problems."
Restrictions on the presidency and government in general are features of protection for liberty. We bypass them at our peril.
Even more troubling is that while respondents viewed capitalism more favorably than socialism, at 52–37 percent, "Gen Z stands out for having more people who like socialism (53%) than capitalism (45%). More than a third of Americans under 30 (38%) say they have a favorable view of communism."
Based as it is on voluntary transactions and individual choices, capitalism is the economic face of freedom. Neither socialism nor its openly totalitarian expression in communism are compatible with liberty. That they're gaining ground with younger Americans is reason for concern. This provides further support for the Cato survey's finding that "nearly 6 in 10 believe the country has moved away from the founding principles, and 56% worry the US could stop being a free country within the next 50 years."
Celebrate Liberty While You Can
Americans are right to worry about the future of freedom given its global erosion, and younger Americans' growing taste for state-dominated systems of total control. But the fact that most Americans do worry about the prospects for liberty means that the country retains a core appreciation of its founding principles. Liberty can only survive if it's valued, and it is.
"Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction," then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan cautioned in 1967.
Freedom remains besieged in the world at large and here at home. But it's still an idea valued and practiced by a majority of Americans. On this 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, that's worth celebrating.
The post On America's 250th Birthday, Celebrate Liberty appeared first on Reason.com.
