Across the field you see the sky ripped open
See the rain through a gaping wound
Pelting the women and children
Pelting the women and children
Who run
Into the arms
Of America
-U2, “Bullet the Blue Sky”
There is much doom and gloom this Fourth of July. It was taken for granted that the holiday was a non-partisan affair. But now we’re going to spend a lot MORE than the $2.5 million the National Park Service claims it diverted for Trump’s Washington spectacle, and we’re gonna waste all that money because King Donnie, The First of his Name, kept stamping his little feet and screaming, “But I wanna PAWAAAAADE!!!!”
Plus, that includes the tanks. Can’t forget the tanks. Even though anybody who’s ever been to Washington knows the roads can’t handle Abrams tanks. (All the liberals ask libertarians, ‘without government, who would build the roads?’ We have a government. Who’s building the roads now?)
And I see people asking why a supposedly non-partisan affair did not include ticket invitations for Democrats and independents, and catered to the donor class, and why an event that is supposedly for all Americans is being turned into a Trump re-election rally. Well, because as far as the Banana Republican Party is concerned, the donor class and the redcaps who go to Trump rallies are the only real America, and everyone else can hang.
Just this week I had a liberal Facebook friend post that the political situation is such that he doesn’t feel like celebrating the Fourth of July.
I’m sorry, but fuck that.
He’s hardly alone. Megan Rapinoe, whose US Women’s Soccer Team is winning victory after victory to reach the World Cup championship, has made it clear she refuses to sing the national anthem. And the latest controversy occured when exiled football star Colin Kapernick used his status with the Nike corporation to cancel a line of sneakers with the 13 Colonies “Betsy Ross flag” because it’s been co-opted by the alt-right.
You got that right: The Betsy Ross flag is evil and racist.
Yeah, fuck that too.
Supposedly the issue is that that flag is a legacy of slavery days. Well, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written in slavery days too. You want to disavow those?
Y’all see where this is going right? Apparently not. So let me explain it to you.
You, the enlightened people, have made it clear that all the Trumpniks have to do is embrace some previously innocuous thing – like a US flag, or an “OK” sign and it becomes theirs, cause as far as you’re concerned that thing has Trump cooties on it. If that’s all it takes, then “cancel culture” is going to cancel its participants right out of the culture, including the culture of other people who don’t agree with Trump.
This is what bullies do. They push you around, and they push some more. “Just let me do this one little thing, and I’ll leave you alone.” “Just lemme borrow the car for three hours- no sorry, three days – and I’ll never do it again.” “Just bend over and spread your cheeks, and I’ll give you a cookie.”
These people are counting on liberals to do what liberals always
do:
Knuckle under and give up.
Adam Serwer, no Ayn Rand fan he, said on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/1146018661142093831 “To be clear: I don’t think it’s wise to cede national or civic symbols to racists because they want them to be able to publicly present their ideology as ‘patriotic,’ and what America should be, which is exactly what is being contested. Let them have the stars and bars.”
Exactly.
I am not giving up the Gadsden Flag. I am not giving up the Betsy Ross flag. The Stars and Stripes is MY flag. You can HAVE the Stars and Bars, Trumpniks. THAT’s a flag for racists and losers.
You don’t let these people monopolize the public square. That’s what they WANT. And my advice to anybody who wants to cede the forum to anybody who makes a scene is: Grow a pair. And if you think that phrase is too “gendered” or offensive… grow a pair.
You might say, “this isn’t how an ally should behave.” Well who cares? I’m NOT an ally. I probably have more in common with the “deplorables” than the lefties. I just don’t think that people should be disenfranchised and dehumanized just for being who they are. Unlike Stephen Miller, I never forget. And I don’t want my country to be destroyed by bullies, morons and Russian stooges, which in Trump’s case is all three.
So if you political robots are right and God/Jesus and the Laws of Physics all dictate that you can only vote for one of TWO political parties, and one of them is Trumpnik, if you expect me to vote with Democrats and leftists, it would really help if you quit fucking it up.
If I vote for your candidates, it will certainly not be because I want you to gain any more power, and even if I did, events since 2018 have shown that you don’t bother to use the power you do have.
All that matters is that one less Republican in office is one less Republican trying to destroy the country. I can at least work to do that much.
But to anybody who really does hate the flag, because the other side claimed it before you did, I ask: Do you seriously hate this country? What country are you living in?
What other country are you going to fight for, if not this one?
China? Russia, North Korea? I hate to tell you, but those are the guys supporting Trump. Everything you hate about America is this country is becoming more like them, not more like America.
Do you really think you’re going to escape racism, xenophobia and the encroaching state if you move to Canada, Britain or Germany? Think again.
Where will you go that is immune to American influence, if this country becomes a literal empire?
Where will the refugees go, if this is the country they have to escape FROM?
What other country are you going to fight for, if not this one?
It
all stops HERE, or it does not stop at all.
Today I was on social media, and followed a link to the speech of the great orator, Frederick Douglass – I hear he’s doing great things these days – entitled “What to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?” And among many other great things he said in that speech, I was struck by the following:
“For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation — a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, “Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.”
‘Twas ever thus.
In Douglass’ day, the forces of oppression had even more institutional support. But as Justin Amash just said, the Founders created a “political system so ordered around liberty that, in succeeding generations, the Constitution itself would strike back against the biases and blind spots of its authors. “
And at length, a thing which could not last forever… did not.
It’s quite possible that Trump might become a dictator, because unless he gets stomped on Election Day – and I mean, Walter Mondale in 1984 stomped – he’s gonna come up with some weasely bullshit excuse for why the election was “unfair” or “rigged” and why it shouldn’t count, and all the Republicans will go along with him because half of them truly want a dictator and the other half just don’t want the responsibility of doing their jobs. And from what I see, most of the Democrats will go along with it, because their leaders are a combination of plain cowardice and learned helplessness, and most of the veterans just don’t want the responsibility of doing their jobs.
But do you seriously think Trump is some immortal, invincible God-Emperor? He can’t live forever. When he’s gone, what will Republicans replace him with? Mike Pence?
Mike Pence is so boring that his Secret Service codename is “Mike Pence.”
Mike Pence is so holier-than-thou that his family Bible is autographed.
If Republicans had any asset other than Trump, they would’ve cut bait a long time ago. The cold fact of the matter is that he really is the most popular and competent politician they have. What does that say for the rest of them?
No matter how bad it looks now, you have to consider what you’re going to do when Trump is gone. Maybe sooner than you think.
When he’s gone, are you still going to say that this country is too ugly and racist to feel good about celebrating a holiday? It’s the SAME COUNTRY that it was before Trump. Trump just made it obvious. Show the same consciousness when Republicans aren’t in charge.
America: My country, right or wrong. If right, to be kept right, if wrong, to be set right.
The best thing you can do to celebrate the holiday is to do exactly what you did the year before, and the years when Obama was president. Have fun. And also, ponder what “independence” means and why this country was founded.
What you do NOT do is concede the field. What you do not do is let these people put a trademark on “America” the way they put a trademark on Christianity. After all, the difference between America and Jesus is that we can prove that America exists. Some of us live here, even.
If you’re going to give up, you’ve already lost. If you’re going to mourn, this country is already dead.
So until Election Day, remember the words of the politically incorrect Tim Allen:
