:: Monday, July 07, 2003 ::

Independent Thoughts on Independence Day

Happy Birthday, America, you big lug!

Here's my obligatory 4th of July post (and only 3 days after the fact!). My patriotism, lately, goes in swings. One day I'm as unpatriotic as can be, ready to hop the next plane to Sweden if I had the means, and the next, I'm all about being an American in America. And the 4th of July, with all of its fireworks and its assorted summery fun, tends to make me into a happy American. There's a lot I love about this country, and a lot I don't. Is it the same for everyone else, everywhere else? Probably, I think...I don't know. I hope so.

Because no one should be completely patriotic all the time. If nothing else, it's just plain stupid. This isn't a popular viewpoint these days in post-9/11, War-on-Terrorism, Liberation-of-Iraq America. These days, patriotism = good, dissent and disagreement = bad. But I'm gonna say it anyways, because somebody has to.

Being patriotic and pro-American (or pro-whatever you are) all the time, to the exclusion of all else is incredibly short-sighted and naive. If you walk around in red, white, and blue blinders all the time, secure in the notion that everything your country and its government does is good and right, how will you know if it's doing something wrong? Everyone makes mistakes, yes, even the good old U.S. of A. But if we blindly trust everything that we do, we will miss the mistakes that we make, and then we can't learn from them.

I have a pet theory (and I'll admit, I'm biased, what with a piece of paper that says B.A. in History on it), that all American presidents should have to have history degrees. That way they will know what came before them, what mistakes were made, what solutions worked, and maybe, just maybe, they will not be doomed to repeat the past.

Would that solve any of the problems facing America, and more widely, the world? I don't know. It certainly would help, I think. I'm getting a little off the topic of what I wanted to say, but here's the final thought I want to leave you with.

America has become far too complacent. Yes, we are the world's sole remaining superpower. Perhaps we do have a duty and an obligation to police the rest of the world. But here we are, celebrating our country's 227th birthday. That's a long time. It seems like America has been around forever. And it seems like it'll always be around.

It hasn't. It won't.

It's been around 227 years. And while that may seem like a long time to you and me, it's barely a feather on the scale of history. Ask Europe, with hundreds of years of history. Ask China, with over five thousand years of recorded history. 227 years is nothing. And yet, you may ask, if China has lasted 5,000 years, why can't America? Perhaps America can last as long, but it won't be the America we know and love. China today is nothing like it was 5000, 1000, or even 100 years ago. It's history is filled with rebellions and invasions and fallen dynasties.

That's the point I want to make. Nothing lasts forever. The great Kingdoms of Egypt? Gone. The Roman Empire? Fallen. Even the British Empire, which less than a hundred years ago spanned almost the entire globe, is once more back to its little group of islands in the North Sea. So, too, will America decline, and perhaps fall.

But only if we let it.

We have to realize that our actions have consequences in the wider world, we have to realize that we need to change to embrace the future.

So happy birthday, America, and to all you Americans out there, be happy, celebrate and love your country, but think - really think - about how we, how you can keep this country going the way we like it. Don't be complacent, don't be arrogant. Let's all just try to be.

Thus endeth the lesson.

:: posted by Rob 6:24 PM [+] ::

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