The day after my fellow Canadians let loose the fireworks at BC place and 3 days before my Japanese brethren tack wishes to bamboo and thank the stars that Altair and Vega are allowed to get it on, America gets to grill hot dogs and blast multicolored gunpowder sky high.
July 4th is strange for someone as cynical and jaded as I am. I don't consider myself as anti-American as many kids of my generation are, but I also wonder about how we celebrate this day. Obviously it's a day for booze and burnt meat, that I'm not going to take issue with, but just like with Christmas I think we need to take this day to really think about what we were founded on and whether we uphold it.
We were founded on the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but like the Bible our Constitution has been misinterpreted, misused, and in some cases completely ignored. I'm not going to claim to be in any academic position or standing to offer unbiased or even well informed social commentary, but I think we need to really evaluate how we live our lives and what we take for granted. Too many of us are quick to label American society as simply "bad" without thinking as to why it's bad or how we can reverse that. We were given the right to free speech and many people use this right without considering what they are using it for or if their own usage of free speech impedes on the right of others to use it. We were given the right to free religion (I will admit that much of American society was and continues to be based on Christian morals/teaching, though I don't think that should have any impact on the quality of religious tolerance we practice) and yet we continue to oppress based on religious belief of both the oppressed and the oppressor.
These are all disjointed thoughts that went through my mind today as I walked amid fields of American flags and red/white/blue facepaint. America is a beautiful country and I think it's one of the best countries in the world if we look at it as a whole.
But it's also rears its ugly head too many times for us to ignore.
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