So, as every year, because I am involved in something other than completely bible-thumping, God-praising, war-supporting, and blind patriotism America, it is understandably inevitable that on the fourth of July, there are going to be comments made on my social networking sites from people also involved in my culture - and some of them are going to have some pretty negative things to say about our country.
Interesting definition for you guys, though I am not going to write about it:
Patriot (2) a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, especially of individual rights, against presumed interference from the federal government.
So that's interesting for all the people that hate the government and get pissed off when you call them patriotic. Ignorance is not bliss, people.
But I digress. People post angry things about America, people denounce independence day, and that is to be expected. And let's be honest about some things - America has done some shitty things in its time. We did the whole slavery thing, we completely annihilated the Native American culture in these lands, we have started wars for little or no reason at all other than political gain, and we continually think that it is our responsibility to police the world, especially the non-christian world. I say this because I don't want you to think that I have illusions about America being the perfect country.
But did you know - independence day celebrates our independence? I know - weird right. Believe it or not, the fourth of july is not "American Awesomeness Day," it is not the day when we celebrate how cool our country is (of course Thanksgiving isn't the day when we celebrate our ability to consume massive amounts of food either, but it ends up happening as well), it is the day when we celebrate the fact that we are not a colony. This is the day that we think about England, and how much imperialism hurt the people of this country before it was a country, and how awesome it is to be in a sovereign nation, with the freedom, if nothing more, to choose our own destiny as a nation. It may be a crap destiny, it may be an awesome destiny that we are treating like crap and running in the opposite direction from. But it is our destiny to choose. I don't know about you guys, but that is the definition of freedom for me: the right to choose your own destiny. You may criticize our freedoms and say that we are not as free as we think we are, and I would agree with that. I don't think that we as people are as free as we think we are, but I think that we as The People are free. This is macro-freedom here, people - we The People, in order to create a more perfect union. Our declaration of independence was not "we hate you england" or "we are awesome in america, so piss off" it was "to throw off such government, and provide new guards for their future security."
And another thing. Let's just go with it, for the sake of argument, that our celebration is misplaced. Let's look at england. Where was england during the slavery thing? Oh - right, I remember - backing the south. What else - oh right, they are the kings of imperialism. They took over india for goodness sake. England is not the beacon of pristine political conditions or historical mistakes either. All I celebrate on The Fourth Of July is the fact that we are an independent nation, that we The People no longer submit to a foreign authority (if you want to see the specific grievances, go read this) and want to be able to provide new guards for our future security.
So you can say "fuck america. may it burn" all you want, and this is "happy imperialism day" but you are missing it. Say fuck america on flag day to make your point. Say happy imperialism day on columbus day and you are right on the money. But when you say those things on the fourth of july, you are missing the point of what we, as people who are grateful for not being stuck under the thumb of a foreign government, are celebrating.
No comments:
Post a Comment