Our Precious Legacy
230 years and one day ago, a group of grossly overdressed old white guys crowded together in a little building in Philadelphia to fairly well sweat their balls off. In between the prolonged sessions of genital schvitzing, they also found time to adopt a general Declaration of Oh My God Why Does It Have To Be This Hot? The motion was immediately assented to by all and duly signed by all in attendance; Benjamin Franklin, in his own inimitable and unique way, marked the document by actually dipping his scrotum in ink and pressing it to the parchment. This is how we, as Americans, came to know the phrase "Hot as Balls."

Right after that, there was much genial (I said genial) harrumph-ing and general amiability. The sense of camaraderie and single-purpose led the group to subsequently vote themselves a pay raise, declare independence from Great Britain and then to affirm a non-binding resolution declaring America "the awesomest."

For some reason, the only thing we remember on July 4th is the Independence thing. In the draft document, Jefferson (and some other dudes whose names I forget but who were probably also totally banging their slaves) said about the abuses of British rule:

Such has been the patient Sufferance so these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the Present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To which all those gathered offered a sincere and solemn "Yeah, fuck that guy" and took turns urinating on a bust of the king. Thus in one fell swoop was the nation of the United States born and the general American attitude toward foreigners also established, ad hoc.

Every July 4th we keep this spirit alive by celebrating in the traditional manner:

Exulting in both gluttony and utter triviality.

Letting rich people find new and novel ways to avoid responsibility for their actions.

Giving up on things that are hard and/or not guaranteed success, while at the same time

Obstinately insisting on repeating processes that are both irrevocably broken and ruinously expensive.

Yes, we are a complicated, fucked-up, twisted little people. But we have a shitload of ICBM-loaded H-bombs and several aircraft carrier groups that can be in the waters off your country's coast in a matter of days. They're a little one-two punch we like to call "freedom" and "democracy." Not unlike the gold knuckle-dusters Radio Raheem had in Do the Right Thing that said HATE and LOVE, except in our case instead of getting strangled to death by the cops and inspiring a riot like Radio Raheem, we launch an all out aerial assault that destroys most of your infrastructure and landmarks before we start landing the ground troops. So I guess it's not really like that at all.

But we do have the H-bombs. So God Bless America.

I said God Bless America, motherfucker!

That's better.

Respect.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 4.7


Pops


PS- The wife is back to work today, so I'm back on my regular schedule for the rest of the week. Sadly, starting next Monday, I'm going to be having a houseguest from out of town for about a week, so more disruption there. I know it's inconvenient, but the in-home visit by the ATF is a non-negotiable provision of my parole agreement. Can't be helped.

- posted by Pops @ 10:21 AM