Opinion: Keep independence part of holiday

Do you celebrate Independence Day, or do you celebrate the Fourth of July instead?

It’s the difference between celebrating insurrection, secession, and the violent overthrow of a tyrannical government in the cause of independence, or demonstrating your loyalty to an even more tyrannical government and its military.

I know which one most people celebrate.

Most holidays get corrupted and co-opted over time. Complaints about the commercialization of Christmas are as traditional as Christmas gifts. Yet, no holiday has changed more than Independence Day. It has become a celebration of the opposite of its original spirit. It would be as though Christmas had become a day of hatred and theft. This is probably why almost no one calls it “Independence Day” anymore, choosing instead to simply identify it by the calendar date.

I’m sure this is no accident. The U.S. federal government would prefer you believe the holiday is about remembering it as the hero of the story for defeating the evil British government centuries ago.

It wouldn’t want you to think outside the box and make any inconvenient connections beyond the curated events as told in history books. Or notice that the British government of that time was less authoritarian and tyrannical than the current U.S. federal government has become -- by a wide margin.

Independence Day is not about cookouts, fireworks, or military appreciation. It’s about violently throwing off the rule of the most powerful government in the world at that time.

Unfortunately, those who accomplished this feat immediately made the fatal mistake of replacing the cancerous tumor they had removed with a “new and improved” cancerous tumor; one that has grown larger and worse than the original had ever dreamed of being.

It’s an error most revolutionaries make. I suppose they didn’t know any better. They were apparently still suspicious of liberty in spite of their impassioned speeches praising it.

Where do you stand? With liberty and against political government, or with the majority?

Do you love liberty, or do you prefer “liberty, but?”

Do you follow the crowd that rejects liberty -- the right to do everything that doesn’t violate anyone else -- preferring the freedom to do whatever you feel like doing, regardless of who you violate, as long as it’s legal?

Or, like a politician, do you not understand any of these words apart from what government says they mean?

Keep independence in Independence Day; it’s the reason for the season.

Farwell’s Kent McManigal champions liberty. Contact him at:

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