Happy Independence Day.\r\n
It\u2019s a difficult one, innit? Probably easier for those that reject the whole idea of patriotism, of a kind of unreasonable fondness and pride for one\u2019s nation, just because it happens to be the nation one is part of. But for me, with my view of nation-as-family, my admiration for the aspirational nature of our country, my passion for participatory self-government along Madisonian lines, my Whitman, my Party, my skeptically protective attitude toward inherited institutions, symbols, values and rituals, my hot dogs, my flag, my baseball, my illegal-immigrant grandparents looking for the goldine medina<\/i>, for me, it\u2019s a difficult year.\r\n
Not just because we are, as a nation, engaging in quite public crimes against humanity with concentration camps on the border and the vicious attacks on illegally imprisoned refugees. I mean, yes, mostly because of that, in a way, but in truth every Fourth of July, like every day of every month, our nation engages in a variety of despicable activities. America is aspirational, always\u2014and imperfect even in our aspirations. I do think that our border policies are particularly troubling, but there have been Independence Days that have seen race-based oppression even worse, even on that border. For me, celebrating the Fourth of July does not require reconciling our aspirations and our actual actions; it requires being aware that they are irreconcilable, and celebrating the Good Stuff anyway.\r\n
No, it\u2019s extra difficult this year because I don\u2019t see a path from here to a country that is closer to my aspirations for it. What I think were our national aspirations. I\u2019m not despairing\u2014just because I don\u2019t see a path doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t one\u2014but neither am I hopeful. Frankly, I\u2019m terrified. And that\u2019s not how I like to spend my Fourth of July.\r\n
I want to end this note by turning it around, doing the thing where I acknowledge the truth that things are always getting better and worse simultaneously, that there is much to celebrate about our nation even in these dark times. Or with a call to action, that we should do this and that to create the path I can\u2019t see. Not today. Instead, I\u2019m just going to end with that last bit: I\u2019m terrified, and that\u2019s not how I like to spend my Fourth of July.\r\n
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,<\/I>
-Vardibidian.\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Which Your Humble Blogger is unusually down in the dumps.","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20081"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20083,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20081\/revisions\/20083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}