In Dependence Day musings
In the United States, Independence Day on July 4th is a big celebration with parades, fireworks, community picnics, and more. However, the inundation of patrioric zeal strikes me as entirely contrary to the event it celebrates. In 1776, a bunch of lawyers, businessmen, and landowners ratified a document to secede from an overbearing government.
They were a bit late to the revolutionary game, since fighting started spontaneously in April of 1775, but the credit still goes to this anniversary of the signing of what is really a decent statement of liberty in response to governmental overreach. It isn't perfect, but nothing is, and its charges against the British government still ring true today against the United States of today.
The strage part, then, is the religious veneration of the military and police, the stump speeches from politicians, and the pledges of allegiance. The spirit of independence is wholly absent from In Dependence Day.
So instead of patriotic songs, sarcasm is the order of the day. Instead of Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA, I have a different song in mind today:
Benjamin Rush (one of the signers) was complaining about that very same thing over 200 years ago. He wrote complaining to John Adams,
"The 4th of July has been celebrated in Philada: in the manner I expected. The military men, and particularly one of them, ran away with all the glory of the day. Scarcely a word was said of the solicitude and labors, and fears, and sorrows and sleepless nights of the men who projected, proposed, defended, and Subscribed the declaration of independance. Do you recollect your memorable speech upon the Day on which the Vote was taken? Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress, to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?"
Could you include a link to the lyrics? I can't understand the song. And it sounds like it could be interesting.
Here you go!
Thank you. And yes, it was interesting. Unfortunately, even though I can understand the words now, I am still not quite sure what it all is supposed to mean. Perhaps that's the point: it doesn't mean much.
Plastic patriotism, self-aggrandizement, and vanity have replaced principles. At least, that's what I get out of it.
Ok, that makes sense!
Fantastic post friend
Then maybe you should upvote it and leave a more substantive comment.