Happy 4th of July!

I think it's awesome that we get a chance to celebrate telling King George and England to stuff it. And to think it was all just because they decided to slap a little tax on the tea. (Oregon just told our legislature the same thing when they tried to put another 5 cents per beer tax in place. Although I'm not sure how we would have declared independence from Oregon. It's the thought that counts anyway.) So here's to diplomatically giving the finger to the King.

In the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence:

You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! Ah blow my nose at you, so-called "[George] Keeeng"! You and all your silly English Knnnnnnnn-ighuts!!! ... Ah don' wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper! Ah fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries! ... Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!

I couldn't have said it better myself.

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On a serious note, Franny and I were discussing the state of things the other day, and it got me thinking about our country and what direction it has come and is going. I can't for a second agree that "We're number #1" about everything, but we do a pretty good job about a lot of things.

We've got the longest lasting constitution in the world, and although we were about 3000 years late for the first democracy, we have one that is surviving quite well despite the beliefs of those at either end of the political spectrum. We have one of the highest standards of living in the world, some of the best unspoiled protected wilderness, the ability to grow something like twice the food we need, and the strongest work ethic and ingenuity around. We have shown time and again that as a country we can rise to whatever challenge confronts us. The Japanese hit us with an attack that was intended to cripple us and we came back out of a decade-long depression to beat both them and the Nazis. The Soviets launched a little beeping satellite and we sent so many men to the moon that the country got bored watching. The Asian tiger economies looked like they were about the buy the country right out from under us, so we invented the internet (thanks Gore), which has shown itself to be a dominant new paradigm in world-wide communication.

This is not intended as a flag-waving, toot-our-own-horn, we're-the-best type of jingoism. We clearly have some issues. I just mean to point out that for all our faults and foibles, this is a pretty good setup we have here. Mexicans will still want to move here. Gays will still want to get married. Hunters will still want assault weapons. Whatever. We will absorb all that, settle somewhere in the middle, and move on to the other "big" issues to keep ourselves occupied, all the while remaining one of the most successful countries on the planet.

For the most part we disagree endlessly about lots of things, but I can't think of a single time when a governing official in this country has refused to relinquish power after an election, or when we had anyone forcefully take control of any part of government. We have the occasional close call that sparks lots of debate about the "real" winner, but with 300 million opinions to worry about, that's not surprising, and we somehow manage to keep functioning anyway regardless of the outcome. We make a lot of noise about contentious issues, but in the end, almost everyone agrees that peacefully continuing the system we've got is far better than anything else we could come up with right now.

I hear too often that what's going on right now is the worst ever or that this is the straw that's going to break the camel's back, but from what I know of history, there's pretty much always been someone saying those things. And as far as the worst ever, we've survived the British trying to take us back, all out civil war, slavery, and two World Wars. The fact that we don't completely approve of what the president is doing right now is hardly even noteworthy in the long run. As long as we have the national will to give a damn about Paris Hilton, our situation is not that bad.

So Happy 4th of July and enjoy what we've got going here. Wake up tomorrow and work to make it better; just don't forget what you've got to work with.