Happy Independence Day - [BCochran]

AoSHQ's official baseball corespondent brings you some thoughts on the holiday

Happy Independence Day to Ace, the Cobs, the Weekend Open Bloggers, all of you Morons, Ettes, Lurkers, Advertisers and whoever else frequents this den of iniquity.



While, for obvious reasons, Christmas and Easter are my two favorite holidays, Independence Day ranks just behind them. I LOVE the Fourth of July.



But it seems that more and more folks are morose and depressed and generally blue around this holiday. Many folks, looking at the current state of affairs and projected trajectory, are finding less and less to celebrate about. And while I certainly understand where they are coming from, I celebrate this day all the more.



“But Brent,” you’ll say, “we’re losing at every turn. Liberal/socialist ideals and thoughts seem to be winning the day. The one thing that FiCons and SoCons can agree on is that we’re losing!”



And I don’t disagree.



But here’s the thing, I celebrate the Fourth of July as a refutation of those ideas.



What does Independence Day stand for? What is it a celebration of? It is NOT a celebration of the country as it exists. It is a celebration of the founding of this country. It is an exultation of the ideals of liberty and an act of veneration toward the men who gave tyranny the middle finger.



Those men risked, quite literally, everything. And they did it for an idea. For a hope. On faith. What they fought for had never been done before. When Patrick Henry declared “Give me liberty or give me death!” no one knew quite what liberty would look like. But they were determined to give it a try. They believed in the ideals of freedom. When our Founding Fathers declared “we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” they did so not with heavy hearts and trepidation, but with boldness and, dare I say, joy. They were throwing off the yoke of oppression and grabbing their opportunity for a free life.



And by God they won. They succeeded. They were victorious.



Yes, they are likely distraught at what exists. There is much to bemoan, to rail against, to fear even. But not today.



Today, me and mine celebrate. We will eat, we will drink, we will colorfully blow some shit up. We will do so because brave men and women believed in freedom and liberty enough to dare all. They had far less than us, but still they had hope. Still they had faith. No one had shown them what liberty looked like, yet still they fought for it. I honor their memory today with that same hope, with that same faith. We have seen liberty, we have tasted freedom. We have done so because of those men and women and I will honor them and their memory and their sacrifice not in moroseness or anger, but in celebration and hope for the future.



There are 364 days to fret, to yell, to quake, to curse, to fear. Let us spend this day in celebration. In joy. Let us refuse to be cowed by the weight of the possibility of future oppression and instead, let us celebrate the day liberty and courage combined to give us this nation.



May God bless you, your loved ones and the United States of America.

Open Thread-[Weirddave]