INDEPENDENCE???????????DAY 2001

by G.  P. Campbell
Shirley, Arkansas
wadsc@artelco.com

The other day, as the kids and I set out in search of props for a traditional Fourth of July celebration, I decided to explain to the kids what Independence Day was all about.

“Yes, Children, we are celebrating our independence from a government who wanted too much control...”, I began... as we climbed into our government licensed and registered vehicle, snapped on our government required seat belts, and made a quick check to see that I had my ‘papers in order’. Oh, you know, my driver’s license, and government required proof of auto insurance.

“...The King demanded too many taxes”... “hmmm”, I thought to myself, “we could surely buy a lot more fireworks and hot-dogs if we had the 50% plus of Daddy’s wages the government commandeers from his paycheck, our groceries, gasoline, medicine, personal/real property taxes etc...etc...”

“It’s traditional to celebrate with firecrackers and pop-bottle rockets, and a wonderful assortment of fireworks!” I went on to say, as we pulled up to a stand displaying only 10 second sparklers and environmentally pollutant smoke bombs. “Ah yes, the government is now protecting us from the fireworks they assume we are too ignorant to know how to use safely and properly”  (but weren’t we all educated in government schools?). “Well, lets just get some sparklers,” I say with waning enthusiasm.

“LOOK, Mom!”, my son points out, “These fireworks were made in CHINA! Isn’t that where they killed some school kids who wanted a little freedom?”

My teenager adds, “I read in the newspaper that the Chinese get their organ donors by killing the lucky prisoner with the right DNA.”

“Eeoouu”, my daughter squeals, “and they eat babies!”

I finish with, “And OUR president thinks China is such a GREAT nation that he awards them ‘Most Favored Nation’ status”.

“How appropriate”, I now think with just a HINT of sarcasm,” we are about to celebrate our freedom with products made in and purchased from a Communist country whose people are considered to be nothing more than raw materials, and freedom seeking students are murdered in the street by a government who knows they can quash opposition because the Chinese PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE GUNS.”

As we turned away from the fireworks stand, I noticed it was sponsored by the Boy Scouts. I shook my head in wonder at how an organization so ‘morally straight’ that they do not want homosexuals leading our young men could support the atrocities of the Communist Chinese government.

“Oh, let’s just go home,” I sadly respond. “Maybe we’ll just burn an American Flag.”

Fully disillusioned by now, I lamented to the children how our free and independent country seems to have been taken over by tyrants because “good men had done nothing”. I pulled onto the highway, searching for something encouraging to say, “At least America isn’t as bad as Nazi Germany where people were stopped at checkpoints as they traveled”.  My son added, “And I read about the Red Army stopping people at “Checkpoint Charlie” in the days of the Berlin Wall!” I saw something ahead on the road, was there an accident? I hoped no one had been hurt. As I drove nearer it looked like...NO!!! Couldn’t be!! The children shrieked in horror,
“MOMMY, is that Checkpoint Charlie?!?!”

As I pulled to the side of the road my little daughter cried from the backseat, “Mommy, I don’t want to go to a concentration camp!”

Good thing I had my “papers in order”..........................

So, while you were all out celebrating something-or-other, we just sat at home and mourned the LOSS of our independence.

MEN WITH LIVES AND FAMILIES DIED IN WARS TO SECURE OUR LIBERTY. THEY BELIEVED THAT WE WOULD APPRECIATE OUR BLOOD-BOUGHT FREEDOM AND EXPECTED US TO  PRESERVE IT. WE NEED TO HUMBLE OURSELVES AND ASK THEM TO FORGIVE US,  ONE AND ALL, FOR ALLOWING OUR FREEDOM TO FADE AWAY  INTO THE DARKNESS.

G.  P. Campbell

P.S.  I’m so sorry to say, that I don’t expect July 4, 2001 to be much different under a Republican administration.