Happy Fourth of July

[bobabode]

Have a safe Independence Day. Don't set fire to anything.

[Pio1980]

Independence day for the former colonists, to be celebrated with illuminations.
https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/...-2/7771713001/

[donquixote99]

I am in more of a flag-waving mood than I have been for a long time. The Union forever! All the talk of secession by left and right is wrong-headed. The federal army we have now, it's not fascist. But what sort of army would a red-state national government raise? No one needs that!

[Oerets]

Hope everyone will have a great time celebrating with those who matter the most.

Let us all hope year 246 is not the final age of our liberty.

[finnbow]

July 4th is the anti-MAGA holiday: It stands for equal rights, consent of the governed, leaders with honor, and the belief we can help others enjoy these rights and secure government by consent of the governed. As the key American holiday, July 4th stands against Trumpism. Those who supported (or still defend) the installation of a king on Jan. 6 have no standing to talk about the meaning of Independence Day.

[Chicks]

Nearly every American has a foreboding the country they love is losing its way

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...acter-decline/

How great is the danger of national decline? The Pentagon’s in-house think tank, which has the mysterious name “Office of Net Assessment,” commissioned a study of the problem by Michael J. Mazarr, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corp. It was just published, under the title, “The Societal Foundations of National Competitiveness.” It’s hardly upbeat summer reading, but it can be downloaded free online, and it’s well worth the time.

Mazarr’s disturbing conclusion is that America is losing many of the seven attributes he believes are necessary for competitive success: national ambition and will; unified national identity; shared opportunity; an active state; effective institutions; a learning and adaptive society; and competitive diversity and pluralism.

Part of America’s DNA is the idea that our problems are fixable. I’m still in that party of optimists. But I found Mazarr’s conclusions chilling. When countries begin to fail, he argues, “it is a negative-feedback loop, a poisonous synergy.” The energy that could reverse decline becomes sapped by mistrust and misinformation. Some people get so angry they want to burn the house down and start over.

We’re not at that cataclysmic point yet. I see positive signs in the slow but growing Republican willingness to challenge Donald Trump, and in the broad, bipartisan anger at the extremism of recent Supreme Court decisions. But bad things can happen to good countries, as our modern history shows.

[Dondilion]

Yeah, there are too many Zombie companies.

[bobabode]

Wow. You can't even watch a parade without getting targeted by the gun fanatics.