Independence Day

It's the Fourth of July. (At least it was when I scribbled the following into my notebook.) Any minute, the fireworks should be starting, but I'm inside. Probably won't see a single firework, except on TV. I guess I'm just not in the spirit.

Hearing the first couple "pops" off in the distance makes me sigh. I'm feeling kind of sad. Not exactly sad that I'm not out there - with tears in my eyes, feeling proud as hell of this country - but rather, I'm sad that I didn't want to be there, that slowly over the past couple years that magic seems to have left my heart.

Well. That is sad. I've always been confident that this is the very best country in the world. No question. Although I still feel basically the same way, it's more in the sense of: well, it's not as bad as the other countries in the world. Yet.

I've always thought of France and Britain and the rest of Europe as our past - like we're the front-runner of a marathon, looking over our shoulder and seeing the rest of the participants struggling uphill. Now... Well, considering the direction we're headed, they look frighteningly like our future. It turns out they were running backwards, and so are we. Next stop, European socialism.

All my life, Americans have enjoyed a much higher standard of living because of our freedom. But as I've become more aware of what's going on in this country - and as our pace has accelerated - I feel panicked. Indignant. We're America, damn it! We're supposed to love freedom more than anything. Still I see over 300 million people just willingly giving it up, giving away what our not-so-distant ancestors fought and bled for...

Here's another good quote from Ronald Reagan:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Why do the younger generations squander what their parents and grandparents worked so hard for? And for what? Today it seems like we'll trade it for whatever sounds good at the time. It makes me wonder, if the founding fathers looked upon our nation today and saw how many of our decisions we now defer to the federal government, what would they feel? These were men that loved freedom and loved this country, and feared a tyrannical government. I can't pretend to know what they'd feel, but I can't imagine that pride would have much to do with it. I wonder, if they knew how we'd be so many years later, would they have still fought against Britain, or would it not have been worth it? Or would they have written the Constitution differently?

I still love this country, but I cannot see how people can celebrate when we've given up so much of what makes America so great. Are they celebrating because we've clung to whatever is left of our freedom for so long, that we managed to preserve some piece of the unattainable for longer than any other country? We're poisoning ourselves slower than Europe. Hooray for us!

I can't pretend to know what other Americans want - in fact I'm the least qualified to tell you that, because if you asked me, I would have said Americans want freedom. I want to think that that's still true, but how could it be?

When people consistently vote for those who continually take more and more rights, more and more property (because they believe they know what best to do with it than its rightful owners!), how can they say they value freedom above all else? We don't. We concede for this or that cause - emotion rules over reason. And in doing so, we mortgage our current problems onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. How can we be proud of that?

I am still thankful for what I have, and what we as a country have. We still (knock on wood) have the right to choose among health insurance and care options. We can still choose our banks. We can still choose what foods to eat and whether to exercise. But today, the government is trying to wrestle those choices away from us too. By the very nature of their position, our representatives will always try to take more. Have we forgotten that power begets power? Shame on us for trusting them implicitly.

Looking around on this Independence Day, I see people celebrating, not screaming at the top of their lungs: WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?! Instead of protesting the ruthless usurpation of our rights, we celebrate how free we are.

Maybe that's optimism. (Hey, it could be worse. At least we're not Europe or China!) But I'm still inclined to think it's blindness. Printed in the Declaration of Independence, "all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed" Indeed, we become accustomed to the government interfering in the economy, restricting businesses, and taking our pay. We would rather preserve the status-quo and trust everything will be fine as long as we don't think or talk about it too much. The government can just keep printing money to pay for our mistakes - but in the end, we'll pay for it. Or our children will, or our grandchildren.

To see into our future, we need only look across the Atlantic. At least, as our productivity and standard of living fall, we won't be alone. I guess misery does love company...