Labor Day is called the “unofficial end of summer” because it marks the end of the America’s nominal summer season. Of the 7% of Americans who take two-week vacations, many take their vacations during the two weeks ending Labor Day weekend. Many fall activities, such as school and sports (particularly football), begin around this time. Of course, in the South, many school districts take a three day weekend since they have been underway for a few weeks.
Labor Day is a federal holiday in America celebrated on the first Monday of September. It’s recognized function is to honor the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements in the United States.
I think that Labor Day is a celebration of American exceptionalism. Yes, I know, President Obama said that America is not exceptional. This was part of his plan to turn America into another failed socialist state. Fortunately, that has not happened yet.
Let’s look at the record. For thousands of years, the world was an old, humdrum place. Human beings walked, rode animals, sailed on the ocean with the wind, cooked with fire, and lit the night with candles and whale oil. Civilizations rose and fell, Greek, Egyptian, Roman, etc. Despite all this civilization work, the basic human experience did not change very much.
Then came 1776. America was birthed and became the center of the scientific revolution.
Robert F Kennedy is supposed to have said once, “Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and ask why not?”
This is the essence of America. “What if?” What if a person living in the world as it was could imagine it as something else? What if that person was free to experiment, invent, fail and try again? What would be the result?
This is the American experiment. America is a place where curiosity can run wild. A thought can become an experiment, an experiment can become an invention, an invention can become an industry that transforms the lives of millions.
Looking back, someone looked at darkness and asked, What if we could make our own light? Someone looked at the sky and asked, What if human beings could fly? And someone looked at the Moon and asked the question waiting for humanity since the beginning of time: What if we could go there?
Perhaps no example is better than the following question. Someone looked at distance and asked, What if a message could travel faster than a horse? This has been asked and answered many times in different ways. The result today is the Internet which has transformed the lives of almost every human being on the planet in a little more than three decades
Is America exceptional?
One does not get to declare oneself exceptional. Rather one becomes exceptional by doing exceptional things. America earned her exceptionalism in laboratories and machine shops, on farms and factory floors, in universities and garages, through inventors, engineers, and dreamers who refused to accept that yesterday had the final word on anything.
America earned her exceptionalism by doing things. In WW II America saved the world from Germany and Japan by transforming the country into a giant factory producing the goods need to stop Naziism and whatever the Japanese were calling it.
The Dunkirk evacuation in WW II for 336,000 took nine days. On 9/11/2001, Americans evacuated 500,000 people from lower Manhattan in nine hours. This was a spontaneous act of civilians and mariners alike. It was a very clear example of American exceptionalism. More than one private craft captain answered the question What if I could do something, by seizing the moment.
America has been asking “What if?” since its beginnings. What if ordinary people could govern themselves? What if a person could own the fruits of his labor? What if a child born without wealth could rise by talent and determination alone?
America is the shining city on the hill. America is not perfect. But America is a place where a human being could arrive with nothing and still possess a chance. America is possibility. To have possibility, one cannot live in a strait jacket. Socialism is one such strait Jacket.
When I was born in America, I won the lottery. America is a country where the saying Is “What if we can?” “What if we try?” Americans have a DNA that says tomorrow can be better than today.
On Labor Day, 2026, the American Dream still exists. It is not a myth spoken about at graduations. It is there waiting to be seized by the man or woman willing to work for it. And I know plenty who do just that.