Tags : america, Founding Fathers, freedom, independence day, july 4th, Politics
How to Really Celebrate Independence Day
July 4th, also known as Independence Day in America, was this past Saturday, resulting in large quantities of grilled foods, fireworks, and alcohol consumption, much to the chagrin of history buffs and hardcore patriots. But most of the country missed a key component of the weekend: truly celebrating Independence Day. How do you really celebrate Independence Day?
Politics.
I’m not talking about politics at the local level, or even the state level, but politics in the national and international arenas that should be the focus of attention on July 4th. Most Americans are too self-absorbed and/or ignorant to know how good we truly have it – even if you don’t like our President, you think some of our laws are unjust, or you’re incarcerated, you’re still pretty well off. Americans as a people enjoy many freedoms that citizens of countries around the world will never have, and the day that is meant to evoke such reflections has turned into a bloated festival of food, booze, and shenanigans.
China imposes many restrictions on its citizens, not the least of which is internet censorship. Honduras, a South American country, is shadow-controlled by the military and staged a coup against the President. Many Mexicans live in fear of the continuing drug war violence. England is quickly becoming a high-surveillance, low public freedoms police state. Not to mention all the problems of Africa, India, the Middle East…
Yet many Americans don’t realize that our freedoms are so great, so large as to allow us to heavily criticize our own government, move freely throughout the country, or have “basic” services provided to us relatively cheaply and unaffected by government hands. We aren’t jailed for gathering in public groups or persecuted based on where within the United States we were born. We have running water, mostly-stable electricity, computers, cars, gadgets, and much more that large portions of the world will only ever dream of.
Rather than being concerned with how much wealth can be acquired (an activity that has largely resulted in widespread disaster as a country), American citizens should instead occasionally remember that we started out as a group of mostly-English exiles who were looking for something better. We should remember that our country was formed based on ideas of freedoms across-the-board, self governance, and a better life. We should remember that no matter how vitriolic the political rhetoric becomes, we are a single nation of free people seeking to hopefully achieve what is best for ourselves, the future, and the rest of the world.
Life is about much more than the latest episode of a TV program or stalking celebrities – attention needs to be given to the critical issues at hand, and consideration given to the proper place of the general public’s obsessions. This is why the way to truly celebrate the American Day of Independence, on July 4th, is to read, consider, and discuss politics. Real political issues, not merely the party favorite one-liners of menial consequence.
The Founding Fathers would be ashamed of Average John Q. Public today, so it is fitting on a day in memory of them that the public attention wanders across the plains of political enlightenment.
President Obama, it seems, understands this.
Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.
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