1965 Born on the Fourth of July

Okay, my fellow Yankee Doodle Dandies, it’s time for another big birthday party.  We’re 242

years old. Did you forget to send a card? No? No worries. They don’t deliver mail on July fourth, except from Amazon, so no one will notice.

There are people who think we’re starting to show signs of age.  Nah. Not possible.  Not when we have an infantile president, a congress that throws tantrums and its oatmeal off the high chair and all over the floor and a supreme court that’s still reading that first draft of the constitution.  Not easy to do with a fifth grade education. Sound it out, people.

Seriously, though, we have a lot to celebrate.  We have a booming economy at least on paper.  We have freedoms that are the envy of the rest of the world. You know… like freedom to destroy nations in the name of nation-building. And we don’t even need a passport to cross the border between Pennsylvania and Arkansas.

We have freedom to vote for the candidates our party grand dragons choose for us. We have freedom to be mavrick-y and occasionally put an insurgent into office.  Keeps the hopes of the political and chattering classes up.

Most important: we have our freedom to con.  And enough actual strength so that the cons don’t get noticed for a while, if ever.  Or ignored.

There’s a con man in the white house. There’s a con man at the head of the senate.  There’s a con man at the head of the house.  And there is a majority of con men on the supreme court to keep us hopeful and if not happy at least peaceable. Or at least only minimally violent.

And it’s not just the con men of government.  We have more than our share of industrial, financial and factory farm con men to keep our heads spinning, our hearts pumping and our hands tied.

And we’re a nation of generous souls.  We’re paying off numerous countries and pseudo countries. And we have the freedom to destroy everyone who doesn’t accept our bribes or our threats, implicit or actual.

Further, we have established these truths to be self evident:

--God created the world in six days and took Saturday off and didn’t even bother to go to that fabulous one day sale at Macy’s.

--No turn on red.

--You have the right to bare arms but only if your arms are toned and not flabby.

--All men were created equal. Women to the back of the bus.

--The TSA is God’s way of telling you man was not meant to fly.

--Amtrak is God’s way of telling you not to take the train either.

--Megabus is God’s way of telling you not to take the bus.

--Podiatry is God’s way of telling you not to walk.

--All this is God’s way of encouraging working at home, schooling at home and stay at home moms.

All this we celebrate on our country’s birthday.  But wait. There’s more.

We’ll all be going to the Big Fireworks Show tonight or watching it on the idiots’ light.  The biggest of them will be Macy’s on the river in New York.  But punier celebrations will be held nationwide.

On TV, we’ll see the band of some branch of the armed forces.  They’ll never tell us that these fine instrumentalists are chosen from among those who were in the opening acts of opening acts but who play traditional band instruments and can carry a tune.

Okay, seriously: we have two and only two real freedoms that aren’t shared by the rest of the world: 1. The freedom to correct our mistakes and 2. The freedom to choose our oppressor.

See you Friday, live from Guantanamo.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

All sponsored content on this page is fake.

© WJR 2018