And Of Right Ought To Be Free and Independent States

Happy fourth of July weekend.  

Just remember as you're celebrating, we would have been better off without the whole independence thing. 

And also, be sure to teach your children that American independence is founded on colonialism and slavery, and therefore is a holiday not worth celebrating. 

Oh yeah, and lest we forget to pile on offense for this holiday, remember that it's not just racist, but sexist too, and those fireworks you're shooting off tomorrow are nothing more than military propaganda.  

This is how far we have fallen.  We have forgotten the reasons for why we did what we did on July 4, 1776, and turned the work of some of the most brilliant men who ever lived into nothing.  

After a mental midget who somehow escaped with a college degree from my alma mater spouted off a couple of years ago that July 4th was when we celebrated the signing of the Constitution, I decided to make a tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence on or about the holiday.  Each year I go back and remind myself that there were men who took it upon themselves to try and peaceably work with Great Britain over the differences that were really pissing off some of the colonies.  After that peaceable attempt didn't work, the colonies made a point to let the British know they weren't happy and something needed to be done.  When that happened, and the British still did nothing--in fact, they kept piling on the harsh treatment--the colonists said "Enough is enough.  It's time we did our own thing." 

And so, on July 4, 1776, these men who believed that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights" let the world know that they were fed up.  They let the world know in a document signed by representatives from the Colonies that they are well aware such matters as the dissolution of bonds from a government weren't to be taken lightly, and that they had tried to do everything to work their problems out with Britain and the King.  That having failed, the only remaining step was to become a new nation, and our founding fathers declared that day to be THE day, listing all the grievances we had with Great Britain in the document to let people know just how bad they'd pissed us off.  
 

Take some time today or tomorrow to read the Declaration of Independence.  I'm linking it here for you so you don't have to even bother with Saint Google.  Remember what Was, so it doesn't become what Will Be Again.  We're doing way too much to eliminate our nation's history as it is.  With our society's Urge to Purge, and focusing on relativism and deconstructionism, we're already removing the parts of history that weren't so great.  Let's make sure we don't do the same here with what made us the country we have today.  

When you forget your history, you forget what grounds us in time.  Even in an age where the only thing that seems to matter is the next celebrity offense on Twitter, we don't need that memory loss.