This is a Fourth of July address delivered on the sixth of August.

The Fourth is capitalized and the sixth is not, because today’s date has not attained national-holiday status. This is a brief argument why it should.

Eighty years ago, the first atomic bomb obliterated Hiroshima, causing almost 100,000 fatalities and countless horrible injuries. On August 9 another was detonated over Nagasaki with similar results. Neither was a military city. Three days later, Japan surrendered, unconditionally, to allied forces.

The standard justification for unleashing the terrible power of atomic weapons stood on two grounds. First, using a simple ends/means equation, the end of securing Japanese surrender justified the otherwise undesirable means of mass devastation. The second was a hypothetical ca

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