Disclaimer: Please don’t get offended, I love all my readers. This isn’t personal, it’s political. And before you blast me in the the comments, please be sure to read the whole article.
I’m boycotting Fourth of July this year. Instead of BBQ and fireworks, I’ll be dining with my British friends.
Fourth of July has always been my favorite holiday. For me, eating outside on a warm summer night is more appealing than eating inside on a cold winter day, a.k.a. Christmas. But this year, I’m skipping my previously favorite Fourth of July holiday. Why?
You see, I’ve been making a list, checking it twice, trying to figure out whose naughty or nice. And I’m afraid that this year America was naughty.
I’m not talking about the American people. I’ve written on this blog many times before about the importance of distinguishing between a country’s politics and a country’s people. But let’s face it, the Fourth of July is a political affair – it celebrates our system. And it is that system that I have a problem with.
STOP! I know at this point some people are saying: “Tim’s been in China too long, he’s become a communist.” NOT TRUE. Nothing could be farther from the truth. So hold on and let me explain what I mean when I say I have a problem with the system in America.
Our nation has gone through an economic crisis in which eight million people have lost their jobs. We’re currently facing 9.5 percent unemployment (and untold percentage points of underemployment). People want to work and they can’t work – even worse, people are working two and three jobs and still can’t earn a decent wage. But that’s NOT the reason I’m boycotting Fourth of July.
In the midst of such dire straits, Congress has failed to extend unemployment benifits. Even a former McCain economic advisor, Mark Zandi, admits that we need spending on jobs to keep the country out of the tank. And to add insult to injury, Nevada Senate candidate and Tea Party poster child Sharron Angle claims that “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but it doesn’t pay as much. We’ve put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry (watch).”
(Fact: First, the average unemployment benefit is just $290 per week. There are nearly five workers actively searching for work for every job available, compared to 1.5 per job opening before the recession began.)
It’s easy to see out-of-touch politicians as a recent phenomena or blame the current predicament on political missteps rather than the culmination of a long-term systemic problem. But if you think back to that first Fourth of July, you’ll find an America whose system has always been indifferent to the underprivileged. The very men who wrote the words, “all men are created equal,” themselves owned slaves. Not domestic workers, but slaves. Those who coined the term, “God-given inalienable rights,” felt that only male citizens should have the right to vote. The “naughty” list goes on and on.
If some of our nation’s past presidents were rulers in today’s world, modern-day Americans would disdain them as despots who don’t respect their citizens’ human rights. Some people say that you can’t judge the actions of historical figures by today’s morals. I would disagree. But when you have the same sort of hypocrisy permeating politics 234 years later, you have to ask yourself: does our country need reform on a more fundamental level? Gradually, America ended slavery, extended voting rights, apologized for treatment of the Native Americans and released Japanese-Americans from war-time internment camps. One day, we’ll also realize that people deserve the opportunity to earn a decent wage and don’t deserve to lose their life-savings just because they get sick.
But why does a system supposedly founded on freedom require reform after reform? Is it that we as a country are somehow predisposed against the underdog (despite our sports habits)? Why does it always take a massive movement to budge the system into helping those in need?
This Fourth of July, as you picnic with friends and family, eat watermelon and watch fireworks – take a minute to notice how many of the things we’re thankful for would not have come about if it were not for the Americans who reformed the system, who amended the Constitution, who challenged the status quo, who stood up and said things need to change.
And then, resolve to never stop changing.
