JULY 4TH INDEPENDENCE DAY - Enjoy It While You Can! And BE GRATEFUL!

Something tells me that July 4th will not be a holiday much longer.  The alleged desire for more "globalization," particularly while President Obama and his ilk rule the proverbial roost, portends a day in which almost any form of national pride will be looked upon as naive and, ultimately, immoral.  I don't argue with people that talk about America's mistakes, at least in terms of what those mistakes are.  America is an experiment and as with most experiments, it has had more than its share of explosions and injuries that could have been prevented.  What was done to the Native Americans, for example, seems almost totally inexcusable.  What I see many of America's accusers fail to acknowledge, however, is that - like slavery - the abuse of the Native Americans began LONG before America was actually a single nation and, technically, was perpetrated mostly by the English, French and Spanish.  However, the nation of the United States does bear its share of responsibility in that particular tragedy for what was done by people like President Andrew Jackson, who I think oversaw the displacement of the Cherokee in the Trail of Tears.  There are also things like certain dubious motives for America's participation in overseas wars and other conflicts, particularly the Vietnam conflict (never officially declared a war by Congress) and, most recently, Iraq.  However, it strikes me that this was all made possible when, in the first years of the 20th century, presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and, later, Woodrow Wilson - one a Republican-turned-Bull Moose Independent, the other a Democrat that first tried to help form a version of the United Nations - began to think that America needed a more significant presence and a reputation of its own in world affairs. People can judge any way they wish, but it's a FACT that America became instrumental in winning two World Wars for its allies overseas and, in particular, for beating back the threat of the Nazis, who might otherwise have taken over most if not all of Western Europe and created a scenario which might have eventually threatened the United States, as well.  America didn't do it alone, but the war began in 1938, three years before America's involvement began, and the Nazi war machine was going strong at that time (Japan is a slightly different matter).

The fundamental reason I'm in favor of holidays like July 4th is that it reminds people to be GRATEFUL for something, and in the case of America, one of those things is the freedom to air such a long litany of complaints without excessive fear of reprisal from the State.  Unless I'm mistaken, China now forbids ANY celebration or recognition of the anniversary of the protests in Tienanmen Square,  Russia is slowly reverting back to its Soviet era habits of harassing and trying to occupy and possess its neighbors, such as the Ukraine and Georgia, which poses an indirect threat to Western Europe in part because that region relies a lot on things like natural gas from the East.  One can call America hypocritical and, at times, warlike, but in the end, I think it's done more significant good than harm to most of its citizens. After all, people are still coming here from all over the world, and do you see boatloads of Mexicans and South Americans headed for Cuba?  No.  They trek hundreds of miles sometimes on foot to reach the border of AMERICA - and you can argue that it's the more obvious and convenient choice, but by how much?

Speaking only for myself, I've seen nothing to suggest that I would have lived past my first week or two of life had I been born anywhere else, and the homeopathic or alternative medicine of the Far East would NOT have saved me from the conditions which required surgery and technology to correct.  The healthcare systems in some other countries may be cheaper, more accessible and even efficient to a degree, but from what I've heard, they're not all so flexible as to be able to devote enough time and attention to saving a single patient's life.  That's why I'm opposed to socialized medicine HERE (not everywhere) because no matter how well it is alleged to work in other nations, most of those nations deal with smaller, less diverse populations, and in the end, we're still talking about wholesale healthcare: First come, first serve and nothing done that isn't first approved for payment by the state.  My family has been in the healthcare business for 40 years and I've been in and out of hospitals as a patient my whole life.  So far, I've not heard ANYONE - not doctors, nurses or anyone actually working in the field - voluntarily say a single good thing about the Affordable Care Act or the prospect of socialized medicine.  Just recently, my father went to the emergency room, where a doctor talked a little about how he feared the Affordable Care Act's limitations in the near future on what they could do due to insurance restrictions meant to make it all less expensive.  Recently diagnosed with cancer, my father was even offered FREE CARE by an oncologist at Baptist (he can only really afford the VA, which is technically free but not very efficient or reliable and knew about his lung tumors a full year without saying anything), but was unable to get, the oncologist said, because the law prohibited any doctor from treating patients for free so long as they have Medicare, which my father does now that he's 65.      

I'm sure there are people that could come up with a thesis' worth of statistics and incident reports with which to argue against what I've just written, particularly when it comes to the above paragraph, but this whole blog boils down to the following: If you want to live in a place or a nation that doesn't have its share of sins and still have America's level of freedom and relatively low taxes, your best bet is probably to develop independent space travel so you can fly to a similar world whose population hasn't had time to make as many mistakes. People associate patriotism with nationalism, and nationalism with the warmongering attitudes of the Nazis and the former Soviet Union, who goose-stepped through history on the backs of their beleaguered and sometimes neglected citizenry and all over any and everyone they could find.  Almost every serious accusation leveled against America having to do with mistakes made since the end of the second World War comes back to similar behavior and, most notably, the "military industrial complex" first warned about, ironically, by Republican President and former general Dwight Eisenhower upon leaving office in 1960.

Yes, it is an unfortunate fact that nations like America have sometimes relied, whether intentionally or unintentionally, upon war and conflict to boost economies and world standing. However, this, at least, is not solely a flaw of the Americas.  Rome was born, lived and died on the fruits of war and of conquest. War was made just to keep Rome alive, as it needed territory and populations to conquer, rule over and tax to maintain its own opulence. Similar things could be said of the Spanish and of the English thereafter  The difference with the United States, I believe, is the freedom to acknowledge these imperfections and to at least try to avoid letting them get the better of us in the future.  They may be facts of U.S. history, but they need not be facts of our future just because we continue to be a nation unto ourselves.  As far as nationalism and national pride is concerned, I see it as being more about gratitude than anything else, with gratitude being a far healthier and more productive attitude than the nurturing of feelings of victimization and apocalyptic despair. Some may claim that this requires the convenient forgetting of America's "atrocities," but I disagree.  If anything, we can remember those atrocities and be GRATEFUL that, as a nation, we learned and/or are learning from those mistakes instead of letting them get us down. I also disagree with anyone that believes it to require a lot of naivete.  Does one have to believe themselves perfect and flawless in order to have self-esteem and to want to live?  If so, then I think we would all be suicidal - at least everyone of at least average intelligence.

If you're an American, living in America, then be GRATEFUL for that - if for no other reason than the fact that you have the freedom to complain if you wish!  If, of course, that's what you get off on, and believe me, I would understand.  A lot of people that come down the hardest on America claim also to be "humanist," but what is more human than being able to be as flawed as America allegedly is, yet still be able to learn from the past, stand up and march into the future with adjusted attitudes and new approaches?  Many are criticized for believing that America is the greatest nation on Earth, but frankly, I hope that everyone - no matter where they live - can have the luxury of believing that about their nation. The fact that the world is divided into nations does NOT, in my opinion, mean that we cannot work together.  All it means is that we acknowledge our differences, both voluntary and otherwise, and celebrate them while still having respect and getting along as best as possible.  The fact that we have differences also does not mean that they cannot be set aside to achieve common goals. I don't think humanity NEEDS one world order just to be able to work together.  To me, that's a defeatist way of looking at things because it says that we're so fundamentally divided, so flawed and relatively helpless that we need a super-strong, centralized power with global reach to affect change that can benefit everyone.  Yeah, that may seem to be the case once in a while, but does it have to be?  I don't think so.  If it's an example of anything, America is an example of how humans can do just about anything when they want to, and regardless of their differences considering that America is a nation built by immigrants from around the world. If you need a reason to celebrate July 4th and be grateful for America, then I can think of none better.