Happy July 4th

We're all very different people. We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans.
We're Americans. With a capital A, huh?
You know what that means? Do you? That means
that our forefathers....were kicked out of every decent country in the world.
We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog.
We're mutts.
But there's no animal that's more faithful...
...that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt.
Who saw Old Yeller? Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end?
Nobody cried when Old Yeller got shot? I'm sure.
I cried my eyes out.
Yeah.
So we're all dogfaces. We're all very, very different.
But there is one thing that we all have in common.
We were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army.
--Bill Murray, Stripes

I hope everyone has a happy, fun, and safe holiday today. The fourth is one of my favorite holidays, mainly because I like fireworks. One of the great things about where I live in the city is I can literally walk to the end of my street and see the Zilker Park fireworks.

Hopefully also everyone will take a moment to think about the freedoms we enjoy (and which sadly seem to erode each and every year in the very name of "freedom" and "safety"). These freedoms initially came about by the sacrifices of poor farmers, rich landed aristocratic white men, and their wives and families. Although the rebellion started off primarily in protest against taxes, it quickly spread as the British decided to reassert their sovereignty through occupation troops. Ironically, those rich landed aristocratic white men, who probably benefited the most under British rule, were the very ones leading the rebellion. Unlike other rebellions, this one quickly took on the mantle of an idealism beyond mere "self-rule." Although many of these rich white guys may have thought of freedom as something only they would enjoy, like the barons who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, Jefferson, the greatest American intellect ever, would have none of that and put it much more broadly. In so doing he managed to state the American Ideal in exactly one sentence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." These rebels knew that in merely signing the Declaration, they were subjecting themselves to a British death sentence, but nonetheless declared: "for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." They could not possibly have imagined how the spark they lit would change our country and the world.

All throughout our history, young men and women have sacrificed to protect those liberties. From British invasion in the early 19th century, from secession and slavery in the late 19th century, working for recovery in the Great Depression, from German, Japanese, and Russian threats in the 20th century, on the barricades in places like Selma and Montgomery to make our laws mean what they say, and now against threats of random indiscriminate acts of murdering Americans that masquerade in some parts of the world as "war." All the generations of Americans have protected our freedoms, down to today. Generation X went inside the World Trade Center and Pentagon to save lives. Generation Y is fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our people fight smaller but no less important battles every day, to enforce the laws, to protect the helpless and weak, to protect our rights from encroachment and erosion. Every country in the world can heap venom on us, but their citizens vote with their feet day after day in trying to come here. As Bill Murray went on to say in Stripes, "We're ten and one!"

So as you swill your Natural Light and feast on hot dogs and generic potato chips, possibly watching the Astros tank yet another game, think for just a minute about what it means to live in the United States. Enjoy!