Well – America’s most explosive, finger-loss-laden holiday, the Fourth of July, has finally come and gone. I hope you all still have your thumbs intact (except for you Chris Slattery – at least then you wouldn’t be able to write funnier columns and steal the spotlight, you sinister yet hilarious garbageface.)

If you’re anything like me – when you think of the Fourth of July, you think of lighting things on fire and blowing crap up. You probably think of having a few drinks with good friends (if you’re under 21 and nodding your head, tsk, tsk – I’m telling your mom.)

But I think often we forget that we’re celebrating the American spirit and ideal. We’re celebrating the most “memorable epoch in American history”, is it was put by John Adams.

Perhaps the reason we forget is the way politicians have changed the ideal of patriotism to mean something entirely psychotic.

You see, American patriotism isn’t about blindly devoting your life to the country you were born in just because you were born there. Patriotism isn’t some hot blonde on the Fox News Channel ordering you to support a war you have moral qualms about. It’s not about accusing liberals, artists, and hippies of treason because they’re not really into America’s foreign policy during a time of war.

The Fourth of July is a celebration of the day Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. Basically, it’s celebrating the ultimate moment of rebellion, sedition, and defiance of authority in the history of America.

Why do I get the feeling that the folks who call themselves patriots these days would’ve also been railing about the treasonous acts of the rebels in the thirteen colonies?

See –the real America isn’t a place – it’s an ideal. The ideal of equality, dignity, and freedom of thought and speech for every man, woman, and child.

True American patriots don’t hate dissension – they understand its importance. True American patriots ask hard questions of all political figures – whether they’re republican, democratic, or independent. True American patriots are not concerned with whether or not their religion is dominant throughout America, but instead want to assure that all religions have the right to celebrate their beliefs.

True American patriots are not attached to America the nation – they’re attached to America, the ideal. Political systems and parties are human creations and can thus be corrupted by human nature. But the American ideal is constant. It’s the reason our soldiers have fought wars across the world, it’s reason we sacrificed so much for independence in the first place.

Long live the American Spirit, wherever it resides.

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