I know I have. There is a lot of high sentiment in that ol’ declaration of independence, but 240+ years of this country failing to live up to them, and now deciding to just give up and abandon every noble principle expressed in it, doesn’t leave me feeling like commemorating much of anything.
This will be a good day for fasting, working, and watching the rain come down (it’s a thunderstorm day here in Morris, good for Nature for putting a wet blanket on the annoying fireworks.)
cartomancer says
My family and some friends from the village do an annual “guess which famous person is going to die this year” competition. Recently we’ve added a bonus “guess what date Trump is going to be impeached / assassinated / resign / die from natural causes” round. My father picked July the 4th for that one, so if he’s celebrating then I think it’s something everyone can get behind.
Otherwise you’re all more than free to celebrate the traditional British festival known as “Wednesday”.
kenmiller says
I haven’t lost even a bit of interest in celebrating the Fourth! Today is the perfect day to remember this nation’s ideals, reflect on where we have fallen short of them, and to resolve to build a country that lives up to them. Want to really make American great again? Here’s a good place to start:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The Fourth of July is a great day to celebrate those ideals, and to resolve to make them come true. (Hint: we’ve got a nationwide chance to do that on November 5th).
PS: Hot dogs, burgers, and beer this afternoon is a great way to start!
Akira MacKenzie says
I lost interest in Independence Day half-way through Dubya’s first term. Besides realizing that this entire country is one big scam, you’ve seen one fireworks display, you’ve seen them all. You can have a cook out any summer weekend without commemorating an 18th century war won by a bunch of slave-owning rich white guys who used Enlightenment rhetoric to get out of paying their taxes and steal land from the Indians. Now, with our first openly fascist president in office, the whole lie of “freedom” and “liberty” is finally laid bare. There’s nothing to celebrate anymore.
I’m at work right now. It seems that debit card fraudsters don’t even take July 4th off, so neither can we. After work, I’ll go home, paint some miniatures, watch some Rifftrax, eat dinner, go to bed, try to sleep over the sounds of the numbskull neighbors’ firecrackers (Booze helps), and hope that the planet killer asteroid hits us sometime during the night and puts humanity out of the universe’s misery.
Akira MacKenzie says
kenmiller @ 5
Sorry, I fear what laughably passes for a Left-wing in America doesn’t have the guts for “gunpowder treason and plot.”
blf says
Heh. Until I saw this post, I’d forgotten all about it. Which is less impressive than it may sound, as I haven’t been to, much less lived in, the States for many yonks. I do recall from when I last lived there being highly annoyed by the (then?)-locally-seemingly-common practice of going to a somewhat remote beach and setting off explosives — and I do mean explosives, local law enforcement routinely(?) reported finding grenades and similar along with loads of (not always legal) fireworks and firearms. (I suspect it was a very tiny number of eejits who had anything more lethal than questionable fireworks, but as I (now) recall, those numskulls tended to dominate the local news.)
In terms of what the holiday is (supposedly) celebrating, rather than how it is supposedly celebrated, I have a decidedly mixed and probably-varying / -confused take. As an example(? hint?), do not overlook the original human inhabitants, the First Nations peoples.
blf says
Neither do the British. When the first attempt failed, over 400 years ago, they gave up and haven’t tried since. The current shambles is Theresa May, Ms “Windsor” Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, brexit and teh “D”UP.
tmink128 says
I had suggested an anti-fourth party. My friends and wife asked what that entailed. I had no ideas other than eating and drinking and they said that sounds like a regular fourth party. That idea was quickly abandoned.
Artor says
I got spoiled. I used to work for a mad scientist millionaire, also a licensed pyrotechnician, whose wife’s birthday was on the 4th. He used to put together his own fireworks show on her birthday that out-did any public show I’ve ever witnessed. They’ve retired and moved to Hawaii now, so that’s a thing of the past. Now when I see a fireworks show, my reaction is invariably, “Meh.”
militantagnostic says
Am I the only one who read PZ’s agenda for the 4th as “This will be a good day for farting, working, and watching the rain come down”?
nomadiq says
Thunderstorms are the best fireworks. And much more awe-inspiring.
weylguy says
It appears that 250 years is how much time it takes to turn seemingly-unlimited stolen natural resources and reduce them to zero using only slaves, ignorance, stupidity and hubris. Happy Fourth, Amerika!
Dauphni says
@Akira MacKenzie, #3
Just because you live in a shithole country doesn’t mean the rest of us deserve to die.
Fuck your American parochialism, thinking the rest of the world doesn’t matter.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says
reading through the DOI, every item listed against George III, applies to “45” precisely. There is even a line about “obstructing immigration”. there was one line only that qualigies for NA (not applicable), the overwhelming match is astounding without be “surprising” as I have presupposed it since Nov ’16.
*burp*
thank you for reading
antigone10 says
I normally like celebrating the 4th of July. I like keeping an eye on the neighborhood children running around making noise and trying their damnest to hurt themselves. No sarcasm, I seriously enjoy the fact that the kids here still have that much energy and passion for play. I like celebrating the ideals that America stands for, that we’ve never lived up to but are still worth striving for. And yeah, you can throw a BBQ whenever you want, but that’s not the point of a holiday. A holiday is to get more people time off work so we can all have a better chance to party together. A reminder to stop and throw a party.
But this year it feels different and wrong. This year, as one of my friends aptly put it, “Is like celebrating the birthday for a kidnapped child”. So this year, I’m going to do house projects and read.
microraptor says
I’ve spent my entire life struggling to figure out what’s so great about fireworks.
Porivil Sorrens says
I’ll probably pour one out in hopes of the eventual end of the American Empire.
Reginald Selkirk says
Need some godlessness to fill out your Independence Day?
Tabby Lavalamp says
I lost interest in celebrating Canada Day. I just couldn’t get past the atrocities we had to commit to become a country founded by white men and continued to commit long after.
But speaking of Independence Day, I just discovered this is in with every noble principle in the Declaration of Independence…
So it seems that part of the reason for the American insurgency was that the Crown wasn’t letting them kill the natives in greater multitudes to steal more land.
I also just learned today that the potential loss of slavery in the colonies was almost included with the rest of the grievances and the ability to keep their slaves was how slave states were convinced to join the insurgency.
Freedom and liberty!
Susan Montgomery says
I’m celebrating a bit, but then, I’m not a joyless wanker who desperately needs to project an aura of jaded aloofness. Alas, I shall endure the disapproving “meh” of the cool people which is better in some ways than the approving “meh”.
antigone10 says
@Susan-
Yes, how dare people actually like things! Complicated things, even. Honestly, Gen X aloofness always sort of irritated me, and it still sort of irritates me. Have fun at your celebration!
Caine says
PZ:
Ah, I’ve never ‘celebrated’ the 4th, just another day for me, at least if I can ignore the asses with fireworks, which I loathe. I’m doing artwork today, wishing for a handy storm, and stuffing my face – I recently dropped to 92 lbs, must gain weight quickly!
Things are pretty quiet here in Bismarck, and happily, the cancer center is closed today, and most of the hospital staff is on holiday too, so no treatment today, yay. About time I had a day off. :D
Caine says
Susan @ 19:
My, my. Yes, you are a joyless wanker, and an endless fucking complainer, Susan. You complain constantly. Perhaps just for the rest of today, you could shut the fuck up and try to not complain about anything at all.
chigau (違う) says
I don’t think that Susan is joyless.
Howard Brazee says
So much of the symbolism is for the authoritarian Right, and that Right has become so very visible, and so very hateful of anything but itself, that it is pushing me away from celebrating our independence.
Susan Montgomery says
@chigau. Yes, I am a very joyful wanker (like I was going to miss that joke…).
@Caine, I complain because I love. If you peer out of your bubble for a bit, you’ll find that Secular Progressives are seen as the most relentless killjoys since the Quakers. The general perception is that it’s not enough for us to say that the beautiful garden has no fairies hiding in it, we seem to have to burn the garden down just to prove it.
We’re seen as self-loathing nihilists who navel-gaze everything and no one wants to put up with that. Even I get caught up in that every now and then. I’d go into more detail, because this is something that really bothers me about progressiveism but there’s a barbecue that needs my attention.
ColonelZen says
I was going to hang my flag upside down, but in the end decided not to bother (how many would understand?) I’m oddly heartened at how FEW flags I see today. It’s not just I who feels that association with US has become a token of shame and despair.
— TWZ
mnb0 says
Nice piece of joyless wanking, Susan. Especially the meaningless “because I love you” cliche.
jrkrideau says
@ 6 blf
When the first attempt failed, over 400 years ago, they gave up and haven’t tried since.
Umm, check your dates. Charles I might have disagreed with you.
@ 18 Tabby Lavalamp
Seems a good summary of the time and place.
Lord Mansfield’s decision in 1772 was, apparently, very threatening.
Pierce R. Butler says
I intend to consume a beer this evening, with a toast to the 10th anniversary of the death of Jesse Helms.
Kip T.W. says
We’re joyless wankers because we complain, she comsplained.
leerudolph says
mnbo@27:
Now, now. Susan merely said “because I love” with no grammatical object for “love”…
monad says
Thinking the founding fathers were men of high sentiment that the country should try to live up to, when they evidently cared little for the equality and liberty of most people, has been one of its problems.
Rob Grigjanis says
I’m recuperating from July 3rd. The day England won a World Cup knockout match with a penalty shootout. Adiós Colombia, Sverige nästa!
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says
…….they’re fun to watch?
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says
Don’t agree with me. It makes me very uncomfortable.
hemidactylus says
I this some sort of “Control-Left” expression of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” that may get ridiculed on another blog
Not a great day now or in retrospect. How can anyone celebrate after the revelations of immigrant mistreatment and caging children. Our actual origin myth sucks, but now even the idealized America (=USA) is in shambles.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/07/03/citizenship-checkpoints-inland-canada-border-savidge-vpx.cnn
Nothing to celebrate. Drunk neighbors with fireworks epitomize Trump’s America. Obnoxious idiots who care nothing about their impact on others. Dogs hate the noise.
After fireworks show on July 4th at Universal Studios years ago I will never see a fireworks show that impressive. Ever.
hemidactylus says
Sorry my sarcasm alert tags on first paragraph were taken literally as html and disappeared. 🙄
ionopachys says
I’m going to maintain the personal tradition of getting supper at Krystal, but for me it is celebrating the memory of my grandmother. We would always eat there when she took me to see the fireworks. It’s been quite a while since I last felt a desire to celebrate being an American.
anchor says
As if there wasn’t already enough smoke befouling the air from all the wildfires. Americans must add to it. It’s a national tradition. Its their patriotic duty to pollute the shit out of everything.
rq says
Well, here, July 4th is the commemoration day for the Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide. Have to hang out the flags in mourning formation, black ribbon and all.
leerudolph says
Perhaps, with “watch” being the operative word. It’s not only survivors of (mass) shootings and veteran of armed combat that can have (very!) unpleasant reactions to sudden loud noises (“sudden” even though the light from any given firework arrives rather sooner than the sound does). Certainly I do, though I’m in neither of those groups.
vucodlak says
@ Susan Montgomery, #25
Yeah, how dare those awful progressives point out that hurting people isn’t really fun for everyone. Really, if those whiners who are being hurt would just suck it up and take
onean endless series of blows for the team, and never, ever fight back, we could all have a grand old time!Except that it’s not so much a “beautiful garden” as it is the broken bodies of people murdered for enjoyment and/or convenience hung up like trophies. And it’s not so much “burn [it] down” as it is ‘give them a respectful cremation.’
As for the fair folk, I don’t really care if someone believes in them, so long as they don’t demand that I turn my shirt inside out before I go for a walk in an actual garden. Thanks but no thanks; I’ll trust in the iron and sweets I carry.
Because, if there’s one thing that defines a nihilist, it’s the fact that they care deeply enough about things to try to change them for the better. And it goes without saying that trying to help others is the height of navel-gazing behavior.
See, I’m not a joyless person at all, but I have the sense of perspective and empathy to realize that some of the things I enjoy hurt other people, and so maybe I shouldn’t indulge in those things. I’ve made the decision to stick with gardening, building things, and sharing things with people I care about, and leave behind the savage joys of my youth. It’s better that way. For everybody.
Porivil Sorrens says
I like the assertion that we’re not celebrating out of some like, intentional affectation of joylessness in order to seem cool, rather than not finding anything particularly good to celebrate.
Oh, cool, a nation founded by genocidal slave owners that has cut a bloody swathe through the global south for centuries turned a year older. Hooray. -blows party favor-
Porivil Sorrens says
I also take issue with the comparison of the US to a “beautiful garden” rather than like, a smog choked racist police state with active real life concentration camps.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says
It’s just another holiday for me to mostly ignore. The only concession to the holiday is T-shirt with a flag on it purchased years ago for a family reunion with a Fourth of July theme. I’ve only been outside to top off the garbage/recycle bins and wheel them to the parkway for pick-up tomorrow. I need to get to bed early as I have a transport for ElderCare first thing in the morning. If I was interested in fireworks, I could DVR one of the broadcast displays and play it back tomorrow. Not doing that.
Tabby Lavalamp says
If it makes you all feel better…
US Border Patrol, in their hunt for illegal immigrants, is now entering Canadian waters and questioning Canadian citizens.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/us-border-patrol-approached-questioned-canadian-vessels-1.4732583
Wait. That’s not going to make anyone feel better. Sorry.
hemidactylus says
46-tabby
Are we officially in “Your papers, please” situation? Do I have the right as natural born citizen to tell an inquiring thug that I was born in “Gofek, Urselph” without consequence?
According to family legend my grandpa was a ship-jumper from Sweden, which may be an exaggeration, but neither side of my family has deep roots and the thoughts of an illegal grandpa kinda make it personal, even though I never met him. Xenophobic policy is an indicator of our recent downward spiral.
Unhappy 4th y’all.
As an aside I was in England one July 4th on a school trip and we kinda celebrated and the natives were quite nonplussed.
Caine says
Azkyroth:
Perhaps for you. Not for me. This mess of a ‘celebration’ would be a whole lot easier on me if all people did was watch. I have PTSD, and hearing explosions going off for weeks on end, before and after today, well, let’s just say it’s not a fun fuckin’ time for me and others with similar issues.
hemidactylus says
@48- Caine
It just started raining here. My dog isn’t the biggest fan of heavy rain and thunder but the downpour is putting a damper on the local idiots and their obnoxious explosions. I would celebrate an aptly situated medium diameter hail core right about now for the persistent stragglers. They’re so blackout drunk they might think they got in a brawl when they wake up tomorrow.
magistramarla says
I was planning to feed the husband and visiting grandson dinner and then send them to walk down the street to the park to see the fireworks. I was going to stay home to comfort my elderly dog.
As it happened, a severe thunderstorm hit just as I was cooking dinner. We watched the rain while we ate and we’re now showing the grandson reruns of Sherlock Holmes. Thankfully, there are no loud fireworks to frighten my dog. The grandson is also loving Sherlock Holmes – yay!
hemidactylus says
I hate 4th of July and New Years because neighbors with explosives. Rain stopped ☹️
Susan Montgomery says
What have you done to hurt people? Anything directly or do you flagellate yourself for centuries-old wrongs and perceived accidental slights?
Caine says
Hemidactylus @ 49:
That’s another rotten thing about fireworks, their effect on animals. Mine hate them. Fortunately, I’m in Bismarck, where there’s a big show, then quiet. Mister is at home though, and he emailed that everyone in town is going nuts with fireworks because of the storm shutting them down last night. For once, I’m glad I’m not home and dealing with freaked out animals.
I hope your dog comes through okay, and you too.
chigau (違う) says
Susan Montgomery #52
Who are you addressing? and why?
Akira MacKenzie says
Dauphni @ 12
I’m certain that whatever non-US pile of trash you reside upon probably stinks as much as mine.
As a whole, human beings are shit that deserves death. Fuck you for arrogantly think you’re any different.
Great American Satan says
Pictures of burning flags?
Akira MacKenzie says
Great American Satan @ 56
Burn, baby. Burn.
Mark Jacobson says
@ Akira MacKenzie, 55
“Certain” that “probably?”
Humans “as a whole” deserve death. So, you admit some individuals and groups don’t? Yet Daughni is the arrogant one for objecting to wholesale slaughter?
Your message of rabid, frothing hate is getting through clear, but I think you need to work on your particulars. If you’re going to be an misanthropic genocidal shitbag, you might as well be self-consistent about it.
Kip T.W. says
We had a nice 4th with relatives. Our niece & nephew here in town (newphew: by marriage) were joined by additional members of that branch, and all were joined by us, bearing a cake from Wegman’s. It was a flag cake, so we all made cracks about whether it should be upside down or not, and noted that if we didn’t finish it, it had to be disposed of by having Boy Scouts burn it. There was a baby girl, 19 months old, who doesn’t say much yet in the way of words, but if she gets her hands on a phone, she can get right into the sub-menus.
Someone had bought a big box of fireworks (big to me, anyway) which are now legal here. Tyler, the young one, was interested, and sometime she screamed, but afterwards she would clap vigorously. After a while, her mom took her inside to watch COCO.
Best part, for me: Fireflies were showing up. We haven’t had any at our house this year, and last year we didn’t have any either. I’ve tried to make the back yard hospitable to them, but no luck… so you can imagine how much I enjoyed seeing them all around once again. (I still remember a lovely twilight at our old apartment in Newport News when I put a folding chair outside the door of the back-facing unit and just watched semi-darkness settle in and breathe the honeysuckle scent that tinged the area. After a few minutes, fireflies began to drift in across the back yards like quiet celesta notes in the air.)
Akira MacKenzie says
Um, no, “as a whole” implies that no ones deserves to continue to suck oxygen. Yes, that includes me. That includes Daughni. That includes you.
Akira MacKenzie says
Also, I’m not endorsing genocide. Genocide implies human action. I’m merely hoping for this wasted, abortion of a species to die in a natural disaster. No firing squads. No death camps. No genocide.
Kip T.W. says
A co-worker once told me she used “as a whole” differently. She said there was some jerk in another place she’d worked, and she said to him, “as a whole, you’re a good person.” Only she leaned on that first ess. She was deniably calling him an asshole.
I haven’t tried this, myself.
Akira MacKenzie says
Sheesh! It’s getting so a unhappy man, disappointed with the stupidity and greed of his one species, can’t wish for our well-deserved doom. Damn political correctness!
Akira MacKenzie says
EDIT: “It’s getting so an unhappy man, disappointed with the stupidity and greed of his own species…”
The typos come easier when you’re depressed.
Saad says
Wait, so God was the good guy in the Noah story? :(
Akira MacKenzie says
Saad @ 66
I’m beginning to see his point.
blf says
Nope. Teh 1600s diversion was a dictator vs parliament(-of-the-time), or in short, two sets of kleptocrats. As far as I am aware, there was no attempt to (literally) blow up the entire farce.
A possibly more effective counterpoint to my observation is that when the attempt was made to blow up the “government”, it was by a lunatic group of religious extremists. They would probably be called “terrorists” in today’s common vernacular.
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says
So people are chastising me for liking fireworks because loud noises can be triggering, but this gets a pass?
Mark Jacobson says
Azkyroth @ 68:
It shouldn’t get a pass. Wishing for a giant meteor to kill off humanity is no better than wishing for a government to gas the Jews, or a military to bomb the Muslims. Pawning it off on a natural disaster or counting yourself among those you wish dead doesn’t excuse the wretchedness. Were Akira referencing any subset of society they wanted butchered instead of the whole, this would be grounds for an immediate ban.
Oh, and lets not forget all the other forms of life that’d be snuffed out by Akira’s fantasy of a planet-killer asteroid. Dauphni hit the nail on the head with “American parochialism.”
wontbehere4long says
I celebrate the indifference towards 9/11 more. If America is going to respond to a small group of others flying a plane into some stupid towers by killing everyone who looks and sounds like those others, then there was definitely justice in those crashings.