This Fourth of July ...

Our Founding Fathers were a highly fractious bunch with radically different visions of what a United States of America should look like, but the one thing they had in common - they were smart. Dumb was not going to cut it. Check out the names: Adams, Franklin, Jefferson ...

George Washington, who was putting together an army outside of Boston at the time the Declaration of Independence was ratified, was acutely conscious of the fact that he lacked both the intellect and polish of his contemporaries gathered in Philadelphia, but possessed the wisdom and humility to know his place.

Washington not only respected smart, he nurtured his own whiz kids, including the brilliant field generals Nathaniel Greene and Benedict Arnold (the best general on both sides), and aide de camp Alexander Hamilton, who would later mastermind his highly successful Presidency.

Virtually all of the mess we are in today can be attributed to dumb and the culture of dumb. Where smart does exist, we have tended to squander this rare and precious resource in pursuit of dumb agendas. Only smart in the service of smart is going to bail us out of the state we find ourselves in today. Dumb is not going to cut it.

This Fourth of July ...

Let's remember what this country was truly founded on. Let's celebrate smart.