History is a funny thing. We accept what is told to us as fact. We make agreements “to believe” what we are taught, often without question. We are young and impressionable when we are taught all of this. Innocent and believing. And so depending on the extent of that history education, we believe. Sometimes, adamantly. We never question the veracity of what we are taught which is often the romantic and heroic version. As an example…

When Mother Britain fought so many wars that she couldn’t pay for them all- they started to tax everyone and everything available. This created a very lucrative bootlegging opportunity when they taxed and doubled the price of tea. When Britain slashed all of those taxes to nothing because the East India Tea Company was going bankrupt (A government caused bankruptcy and bailout!!) and could not compete with bootlegged tea from other countries- the bootleggers tossed the cheap stuff overboard. Samuel Adams played a big role in all of this- but just what did he do for a living around 1773?

Hard to say. He inherited a brewing business and farm but historical accounts say he essentially pissed it all away and was relying on his friends for support by the age of 42. Perhaps he was a tea bootlegger. Could it be that one of the architects of the revolution, a romantic and mythical creature, was simply a deadbeat and bum? Maybe a tea bootlegger? Absolute blasphemy!

In our brief history, the USA has been involved in 52 actions, invasions, skirmishes, wars. We always believe we are on the side that is right. 52-0 is our score. When we need justification for killing folks and invading lands, we coin terms like manifest destiny, democracy, or bringing stability to a region.

When we invade Iraq, we are bringing stability to the region. A little death and destruction, a lot of big American business selling planes and armaments, 145.00 a barrel oil, good for big oil and the service industry. Wow that has been some stability. What about Bin Laden? Seven years and we can’t find one 6′5″ Saudi? Ever get the feeling we don’t want to find him? Like if we did, our mission would be over and we would have no excuse to be in the middle east?

Why are we so arrogant that we believe that our way of living should be imposed on anyone?

So 240 years later, we swapped a money hungry King for a money hungry government. A more benevolent dictator. We depend on government for everything. We depend on them for student loans, we depend on them for social security, we depend on them for virtually everything including YMCA’s, and bank bailouts. They depend on us to be patriots. To not question what they do-just give us your money, we know what’s good for you. Keep your mouths shut and support us, or we’ll isolate and castigate you. You all work for us.

Have you ever thought that had we never been involved in the middle east, or Afghanistan, ever, that maybe nobody would have been motivated to hijack planes and fly them into buildings? Are we somewhat responsible for arming maniacs like Bin Laden? Was that a good move? Or does it make you feel better to say it’s all his fault? It’s never our fault, is it?

Being a patriot does not mean blind loyalty to everything this country does. In fact we’ve done a lot of stupid things. In my mind-being a patriot means supporting our troops but not necessarily the government. It means having the courage to question this big bully government of ours who just keeps on taking, justifying, rationalizing. Or at least once thinking, “maybe we are wrong…” Being a patriot means doing the right thing even when we do not benefit. That is a novel concept for a lot of folks who think whenever we benefit, that makes it right. Might makes right type of thinking.

Each and every year, this government whittles away at our freedom. Passing laws, patriot acts, protecting American business and bailing them out when they get too greedy. One day, we will have so many laws that violate and chip away at the Constitution and Amendments that we won’t be free at all. One day, we may wake up and realize we are truly powerless. Government has taken it all away. Perhaps that is what we want and deserve-we can celebrate this and call it Dependence Day.

I hope not. I hope we wake up in time. I just wish I could live a couple hundred more years and see how history gets written. In the meantime, I got a few chores to do, get ready for those fireworks tonight…

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 3:19 pm by Brian McNary and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.