Someone just posted the following to a local community group, and since I dont want to reply with an inflammatory comment, Ive decided to put that comment right here on my own wall: I think everyone needs to calm down a little and realize that they did this when they were younger! Its only a couple days a year just calm down and be proud to be american and that we are allowed to celebrate our independance! Several points to make about this comment: 1. I dont know about anybody else, but I can be proud to be American every single day of the year. Although Im not really sure how to be proud of where I was born -- its not really a personal achievement, like learning a language or breaking my own 2-mile-run record. 2. I can also celebrate our independence every single day. I can make up songs and sing them in public about how great it is not to be a British subject anymore. I can design and proudly wear a T-shirt to that effect. I can put bumper stickers on my car and even put signs out in my yard. I can go to a local bar and propose that everybody join me in a toast about not being subject to the Crown. Although Im not really sure how enthusiastic other people would get about that. I mean, it hasnt even been an issue for a couple centuries. Nobodys debating it. Thats like celebrating womens right to wear pants or something. 3. Why does celebrating our independence always have to entail igniting dangerous explosives in proximity to other households, which could catch fire or at least harbor a skittish pet thats now having diarrhea all over the floors, or a haunted vet that has already had a bad day and only needed one more irritant to erupt and take it all out on his wife and kids, or even himself? Does your gleeful independence really HAVE to endanger and terrorize your equally American neighbors? Where is THEIR right to independence, and peace in their own homes? 4. In celebrating our independence, are you overlooking the many ways we really are dependent, in spite of all our bravado? Try to buy an American-made article of clothing anymore. You cant do it. Youll be hard pressed to even find American-manufactured fabric. What about our dependence on foreign oil? Wall Street speculators turn the dial and our gas prices go on a roller-coaster roll (thank goodness Im now driving a Volt!). We depend on India and the Philippines for our call centers, because corporate America values their profits over customer satisfaction. Truth is, we are not and have never been independent. Even at our nations inception, we were dependent on slave labor to build this fledgling republic. So think about what youre saying when you claim to be celebrating our independence. Does that phrase even hold any meaning for today?
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 07:21:49 +0000
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