WHAT ONCE WERE SCANDALS ARE NOW TRADITIONS AND WHAT ONCE WERE TRADITIONS ARE NOW SCANDALS – PERFECT.
We, the people, like a big blue moon whose gaze has been cleaved in half by a mighty oak, do not share a common perspective, and we never will – BY DESIGN. Lest we forget, this wondrously free place we blatantly stole and unequally share, was formed around treasonous documents that also served as de facto death warrants co-signed by long-haired, randy, non-conformist rebels who were, to say the least, imperfect in their personal lives. Ah, well, if death by hanging is the punishment for authoring a declaration of independence, don’t expect polite, obedient, tradition-loving rule-followers to pick up their writing quills – because they never will. Our founding fathers all hoped – no, they all PRAYED – that we would never really see eye-to-eye with the rest of the world or even with each other, so first they completely upended historical tradition and declared that here, in America, our leaders would be viewed by us commoners as our “servants,” and these ‘servants’ wouldn’t be chosen by an elite delegation or esteemed panels of experts, but by a system where the vote of our most informed, deep-thinking patriot would carry the EXACT same weight as the vote of our most misinformed village idiot. It’s been a perfect recipe for creating grating unease both here and abroad, which means it has worked precisely as intended. Our founders then granted us the rights contained in the first and second amendments, thereby allowing a citizen to deliberately shoot their mouth off before accidentally shooting their foot off. The temptation to “evolve” these two amendments is constant, but so far, we remain firmly in agreement with the founders that the real-life dangers that come with too little control are preferable to the fools-gold safety that comes with too much. Within and between the onion-like layers of the passionate, principled, endlessly recurring arguments we Americans engage in regarding these two subjects, a clear design emerges, one built to ensure that this country will never, never, ever be “one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Those are nothing more than frivolous words we teach to gullible school children, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that they were written by a well-meaning socialist. Were we to actually pursue ultimate liberty, we’d end up with a country full of guilt-ridden anarchists, and were we to actually pursue ultimate justice, we’d end up with a country full of overly-idealistic criminals. By ascribing equal importance to these two mutually-opposed aspirations, our founders committed us to the task of unravelling a pendulum-like riddle whose solution is impossible but whose intention is unassailable. We, the people, must agree to disagree – now and forever – for if we ever truly unite in our thinking, we will have abandoned their intention – and all will be lost. Lastly, the founding fathers gave us the right to engage in vulgar, brash, bare-knuckle capitalistic brawls where stubbornness, grit, and dumb luck are often the three determining factors in deciding who wins – and the winner gets a castle and the loser mows the winner’s lawn. It’s an envy-producing scheme for the ages, and with envy comes lasting unrest; EXACTLY as they planned. Ours is an ignoble, uncouth, unforgiving, unapologetic, wildly unfair, mad-as-a-hatter system that makes other more dignified countries avert their gaze in disgust; and I, for one, often share their disgust – EXCEPT WHEN I COMPARE OUR SYSTEM TO WHATEVER LAUGHABLE NONSENCE THEY’RE USING INSTEAD. And so, my fellow Americans, let us shake our collective fist at the cleaved moonlit sky tonight in shared contempt – HARRUMPH! – but tomorrow when morning comes, may we all rise to a restored sense of gratitude, for we are all SO LUCKY. You might disagree, and that’s your right, but before basking in your reflexive rejection, at least pause to consider what gives your discordance a voice: FREEDOM. I suppose that word is almost a cliché now, lost in a fog of overuse and relativism, but if you were to venture out into one of the country’s wild places tonight, you might start to feel differently. There’s something in the wind out there, something born of the heartbreakingly haunting sacrifice of countless courageous souls, and it lays bare the virtue of carrying on with this, the most perpetually frustrating, electrifyingly bold, and unexpectedly successful, experiment ever dreamed up; the one that begins and ends with we, the people.
TU DOIS TE BATTRE POUR TON DROIT DE FAIRE LA FÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
“you gotta fight for the right to paaaarty”
