A statistician made a few calculations and discovered that since the birth of our nation more lives had been lost in celebrating independence than in winning it.

The line uses a wry, quasi-scientific “calculation” to expose a civic irony: the rituals meant to honor national freedom—parades, fireworks, gunfire, drinking, reckless travel—can themselves become a recurring source of preventable death. By contrasting “celebrating independence” with “winning it,” the quote reframes patriotism as a matter not only of remembrance but of responsibility, implying that a mature nation should protect life while commemorating liberty. The statistician figure functions rhetorically, lending the moral point an air of objective inevitability: even if the numbers are not literal, the comparison presses readers to reconsider how tradition, spectacle, and negligence can distort the values they claim to celebrate.