Before You Light That M-80...

On the Fourth of July we celebrate that solemn occasion of our most cherished tenet, the cornerstone of this country, its essential defining element, its reason for being: Freedom.

And we celebrate by blowing shit up and eating.

Hooray! Huzzah! Vivat! Pass the deep fried onion log and and the Pop N' Fresh Oyster Loaf!

Why am I not particularly moved? Is it only because I am a miserable, dissatisfied, sunken-chested Liberal who eschews all things that go "boom" as it makes me even more neurasthenic than I already am? Or that I decry the rapidly thickening waistlines of patriotic Americans from coast to coast, from drive-in window to drive-in window because I worry that they won't be able to fit comfortably in their pickup trucks?

Or is it that I just can't help but marvel at the irony. See? This is me marveling!

I certainly don't want to spoil anyone's barbeque. Like Buford Pusser, the bat wielding sheriff of Walking Tall fame, "I have nothing against a little drink, a little fun, but the law of the land shouldn't be up for sale". And it's not just the law that lies at the bottom of the bargain bin but our national soul. So inured are we to the reduced state of human behavior that we stake our claim as a modern democratic society by scarcely giving a thought to its hard fought beginnings, and to our own subsequent history as a bulwark against tyranny and as a harbor for the waves of disenfranchised and desperate immigrants that formed the sinew of this country's struggle from wilderness to industrial colossus while personifying the highest aspirations of the human race itself; a vast ark of the covenant that holds within the very essence of what America was and needs still to be. And the time has come for there to be a reckoning of what We the People really stand for and how we can go beyond what we've become. America the Free is, alas, America the Mall. And in the mall are stores. And on the shelves of these stores are "Life®", "Liberty®" and "The Pursuit of Happiness®". Paper or plastic?

Every day we consume mindlessly or celebrate vaguely, we sink deeper and deeper into a slumber reminiscent of the tryptophan numbness that overwhelms us on that other incoherent observance, Thanksgiving. Every moment we refuse to loose ourselves from the grip that gluttony has on us, the further away we drift from remembering what we are all about, i.e., what we are celebrating on July Fourth. Being American should be special not because we ritually seek to prove it is by behaving in the manner of a beer-helmeted troglodyte but by embodying our highest aspirations: Truth, Humility, Gratitude, Respect.

As humans, whether we live reverently or not, we run the relay race that is Life, handing the spark of our experience on to those vessels that would come after us -- our children -- to keep the species afloat a little longer until -- hopefully -- it reaches its greatest potential. As Americans it requires hard work to get there and a Herculean effort to never take freedom for granted. Realizing the meaning of Freedom may prove too burdensome. But if we do not, we will lose it. And it is always perilously close to being lost. Current events should make that clear enough.

So take as much time to ponder that as we do to ponder which pimply warbler should survive the next installment of American Idle. Chew on it as though it were cud. Then ponder some more. And then, once that's out of the way, then by all means tie some bottle rockets to your buddy's fender, slather some hot, viscous sauce onto a span of ribs, and rip me off a hunk -- 'cause I got my Freedom Bib on and I am ready to celebrate! Because we'll have deserved it.

Happy Fourth of July, citizens.