Help me here. I'm having a little trouble getting into the spirit this Fourth of July.
Normally, the 4th is a mellow, happy day for me. I like picnics and watermelon and The Boston Pops playing under a shower of fireworks. When I was a child, I thought they called them The Boston Pops because of the fireworks.
Independence Day is the only day of the year when I let my patriotism out of the closet. My Skeptic's Oath usually prevents me from surrendering to patriotism, but on the 4th I abandon myself to the heady smell of gunpowder and freedom. I go full-jingo drag and wrap myself in the flag. I get misty when I hear them play 'America." It's not uncommon for me to read The Declaration of Independence just to remember what the day is about. If I've been to the beer cooler enough times, I've been known to read it aloud.
I love this country, this land, this People and the ideal of independence that they represent. I'm just not too fond of our current government.
The Imperial Branch of government thinks that Separation of Powers is Mike Myers' next comedy film. They wag their fingers at the press, the Congress and the Judiciary. They rave about activist judges legislating from the bench, and all the while they are making up their own law and ignoring not only the laws that they don't like but also ignoring the principles that our country was founded upon, the principles that we celebrate today.
That's why I am experiencing a slight spell of poetic melancholy. I don't know if I can bear to read the Declaration today, not even silently. I might come to that passage that says:
"with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it"
or the one that says:
"But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."
It's just sad the way we Americans, we relatively free Americans, have betrayed the spirit of our independence and allowed a cabal of aristocrats to rule our lives, spy on us and steal our money. It's just sad.
We watch our so-called leaders squabble over politics rather than policy. It's just sad. They talk about gay marriage and flag burning. I call this fiddling while Rome is burning. It's just sad.
It's sad for the Iraqis too. They deserve independence. Do you know when America achieved independence? It's when George III's Redcoats sailed back to England.
Why am I sad? I feel like you feel on the birthday of a departed loved one.
Picture me alone and friendless sitting on the deck in the back yard.
I light my lonely sparkler and sob into my piece of watermelon.
It's just sad.
lrod July 4, 2006
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