In Spite of Everything, Celebrate this Fourth of July

On ignoring the noise and celebrating what matters

Canadian author Stephen Marche, in The Guardian, writes “This Fourth of July, the world declares its independence from America”:

As the United States retreats from the world, it is reshaping the lives of its former trading partners and allies, leaving huge holes in its wake… The Canadian strategy, undertaken with vigor by the newly elected government of Mark Carney, has been clear in spirit at least: a polite “go fuck yourself.” After you’ve told America to fuck off, though, the real work starts. You have to figure out how to live without them.

This Fourth of July, the consensus around the world and in our still-humming (despite distress calls about a fascist takeover) mainstream press, is that 2025 America is lost, a reject, the pig of the world. We’re delinquents, no longer fit to sit at the grownup table, much less lead. Pundits like Mr. Marche (is there anything in the world less believable than a Canadian saying “Go fuck yourself”?) imagine they’re insulting us by saying we no longer deserve titles like “responsible” or “dignified,” forgetting who Americans are and always have been: screwups, losers, earth’s trash. Mutants, as Bill Murray put it in Stripes, whose “forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world.”

Independence Day is when we embrace being sneered at and dismissed as lowlifes by the civilized world. At least, that’s what I’m choosing to do today: