EDITORIAL: The death of July 4th?

Saturday will be July 4th, a day of celebration and American Independence. But whether or not this nation will continue to celebrate its heritage of rugged individualism is now in question.

On July 4th, we sometimes romanticize our nation’s heritage. We weren’t always great. We forget from whence we came.

The history of the United States can roughly be divided into four broad epochs: The founding through the Civil War, an era during which the nation was born in flames and through which it slowly overcame its darkest sins — the genocide of Native Americans and the bloody civil war over slavery.

The second era, from the Civil War to WWII, the U.S., in fits and starts, began to take shape as a people and to build the foundations of its economic might. This era, with its Manifest Destiny in the West of the 1870s-1890s, defined the individualism and free spirit that dominated the U.S. in the 20th Century.

The third era, WWII to the early 1970s, marked the high-water mark in American economic, military and diplomatic power. The nation’s achievement of putting men on the moon has come to symbolize that epoch and was the ultimate expression of American frontier individualism.

The fourth era, from the mid-1970s to today, has seen the waning of that influence and economic strength. More importantly, however, we have seen the dilution of our heritage of independent freedoms.

Some blame President Obama for this, but it began long before he ever entered politics. It began when Americans stopped looking to themselves for their own destiny and began to depend more and more on the government. Individualism became a nasty word.

What began as “safety nets” or equality evolved into entitlements. That further moved into corporate welfare where once proud businesses ceded their freedom for government handouts, the expression of which has now hit a new high point with Washington’s control over the banking and automotive industries.

But the worst expression of the nation’s move further away from July 4th has been the fear-mongering reaction to the threat of terrorism. Americans have become all too ready to cede personal freedoms for the illusion of security of collective safety under additional government control of individual lives.

In 1776, July 4th was just a vague idea of freedom. Most of those living in the Colonies at the time didn’t support separating from England. As in today’s time, many in 1776 preferred the security of England’s umbrella to the unknown future of building a new nation under local control.

One has to wonder if given the choice today, how many people would be willing to celebrate the death of July 4th and its rallying cry of individual freedom, in exchange for the veneer of security under a more powerful, more intrusive and less free government?