Happy Independence Day!

A Happy Independence Day to everyone!

I've been listening to fireworks all night long, fairly large ones at that, which is odd seeing as how Illinois' fireworks laws are almost as restrictive and idiotic as our gun laws. But with the roughly 875,000 stands set up across the border in Hoosier-land, no one ever seems to be at a loss for them. Which is fine by me, although the loud booms really bug the shit out of my dog. I can take him to shoot skeet all afternoon and he won't so much as flick an ear at a shotgun blast, but the Chinese sky candy? Not a fan.

Anyway, I'm listening to the bangs and booms while waiting for my hot tub to warm up (finally got the damned thing fixed today), and I hear a bunch of hoots and hollers from the teenagers blowing the shit out of something across the creek. And I find myself wondering if they really know what the 4th of July is all about. Is it just another excuse to act like idiots and stay out late? Is it just some day where their parents have a big cookout with poorly guarded beer? Is it even that much? Do they stop to think why we're able to do what we do in this country? Knowing what I know of today's youth, I'm guessing that most of them don't. They either don't give a shit, or they're so wrapped up in Hussein's cult of personality that they feel ignoring the real reasons for the day is being a "real" American. You know, the classless, multicultural, ultra-PC, eco-thug Emo flakes that litter our society. I ponder on this a while, and I get mad.

And I mean mad, not angry, even though my old man has a habit of saying "only dogs get mad". (That makes me mad, too, because, A: people get or go mad all the time: barking mad, mad as a hatter, madly in love, etc., and B: my old man is a pedantic jerk most of the time. But I digress.)

I get mad to the point of having half a mind to wander over to where the knuckleheads have gathered, and ask some basic questions about our country, our freedoms, and how and why we hang on to them. Correct answers will be rewarded with a nod; wrong answers will be rewarded with a solid thunk upside the head. But, not knowing how many quarter-sticks they have left, I decide discretion is the better part of valor. I don't really want to dodge lit explosives while sloshing across a muddy creek bottom.

It depresses the shit out of me that so many, kids and "adults", have no idea what Independence Day really stands for, and what it costs. That it truly stands for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that it stands for the freedom to speak your mind, even if you've lost most of it, and the freedom to tell wrong-minded idiots that they are, indeed, wrong-minded idiots; that it stands for the freedom to live your own life, to work and study and worship in your own way, without fear of prison or torture; that it stands for the freedom to stand up and tell your shiftless, marxist, no-talent hack of a prez that you aren't buying any of his bullshit no matter how much he shovels your way; the freedom to write openly in a blog; the freedom to play ball on summer days and eat ice cream without wondering when the next car-bomb is going to go off; the freedom to go to the store at midnight and not only find it open but find the shelves stocked to bursting with food; the list is long and long indeed.

And what about the cost? A cost paid mostly by young men that give their time and freedom to defend those rights, even at the cost of scorn and ridicule from small-minded, blindered fools; even at the cost of their own lives, given without hesitation, like so many from other generations who made and kept this country free. The civilian cost can't be discounted, either: the cost (paid by some) of doing what is right instead of what is wanted; the cost of giving to others without being forced by taxes to do so; the cost of getting things done, from the mundane to the critical, without expecting someone else to pick up the slack.

These are the values that made our country great, and every day sees us slide farther away from these ideals. This Independence Day, let's pray every takes a moment to stop and think about what the occasion really marks.

Again, Happy Independence Day to all!