Yeah, I know I'm being a buzzkill this July 4th. I vividly remember the bicentennial, when I was 14 years old. The vibe was completely different. This frog
has lived long enough to understand that the water has gotten hot, and it pisses him off.

America is not good enough. She was founded on a rotten foundation, and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. "God bless America? No, no, no, no, God damn America."

But that doesn't mean I don't love this country! I'm like am adult kid who finally recognizes his dad is an abuser, and will not stand for it anymore, but also sincerely loves him and is willing to take steps to get him the help he needs and to welcome him back into his heart IF HE DOES THE WORK AND BECOMES BETTER. But not until then.

I want our country to be better. We had a Second Founding when the Reconstruction Amendments were passed in the 1860s. It took us a century to begin actually implementing them, and now the Roberts Court is tearing them apart. Now I want a Third Founding, an America I actually can be proud of, the America I thought we were finally creating back in 1976 when the Vietnam War was over and Jimmy Carter was president and racism seemed to be declining and women finally had rights.

The old America died in 2025. That's sad, and also good, because that America was a profoundly mixed bag. There is no America right now. I am dedicated to crafting a profoundly better America in the future.

Happy Independence Day, fellow patriots. Let's stop worshiping a red white and blue idol, and begin laying the foundations of a nation that actually lives up to its supposed ideals. "Work as if you lived in the early days of a better country." -Alasdair Gray