As this wonderful nation prepares to celebrate Independence Day, please forgive me for expressing a bit of righteous contempt for ungrateful Americans who fail to appreciate the blessings we enjoy by virtue of our nationality.

Yes, I know, “contempt” goes beyond ordinary bounds of journalistic perspective. Even an opinion journalist is supposed to remain somewhat dispassionate. But I’ve had it with the malcontents. I’ve had it with their ignorance. I’ve had it with their lack of gratitude. I’ve had it with their whining and moral purblindness. And I’ve especially had more than enough of their warped values.

Item one: The New York Times is out with a video that appears to be an official, institutional editorial position whose whole point is that the idea the U.S. is “the greatest nation on Earth” is “myth,” because America is really “just okay.” Full essays could be written refuting the video’s tendentious cherry-picking of data, its irrelevancies, and its weirdly snarky sense of glee in letting all of us rubes know that our patriotism is both rube-ish and rubbish. For now, let’s be nice and just say the video woefully misses the vast and verdant rain forest not just for the trees but for the shrubs.

The same holds true for the majority in a Gallup poll released this week who do not rate themselves as “extremely proud” to be American, or the 30% who rate themselves “only moderately proud” or worse. This is especially so for the 49% of those aged 18-29 who answered that way, showing again that the most coddled generation in history is also the most likely to be ungrateful for what it has received. They may not value their own freedom, the freedom they enjoy because America is America, but they would be the first to squeal if it were taken away.

The Times video makes much of the fact that other nations enjoy freedom, too. It ignores the fact that, aside from those nations affiliated historically with the British Empire, the only reason all but a few of them (Switzerland, for example) enjoy freedom at all is because the United States provided the model and encouraged it, and later frequently sacrificed blood and treasure so those others would not be enslaved. Add to that the continuing status of Americans as the most generous people on Earth, and one should begin to appreciate our greatness of spirit.

Maybe the ingrates take for granted that the United States has the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world, that it is the only nation to put men on the moon, that our science and medicine and military have saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide, that our commerce has lifted hundreds of millions of foreigners from poverty, or that our diplomacy again and again has brought other warring nations to the peace table.

It’s as if they think that dumb luck, rather than national character, values, and work, is responsible for all those achievements.

Two hundred and forty-three years ago tomorrow, our founders had the grace to be “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.” At the risk of death by hanging, they had the courage to “mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” Those who do not appreciate the courage, wisdom, magnanimity, and, yes, greatness of that enterprise are the ones who profanely dishonor themselves.

For the rest of us, let us rejoice in our national heritage, confident in its goodness.

Happy Fourth of July!