blowing stuff up and patriotism

Although I try not to be sexist, the joy in blowing stuff up seems to be imprinted and unmethylated (sorry, too much genetics) mainly in the male genome. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. I think that the Fourth of July is one of them. Most people enjoy blowing stuff up- or at least watching stuff get blown up- on Independence Day.

I like fireworks a lot. I think of them as, in the context of that book I just listened to, a sort of fusion of classical and romantic thought, kinda the way I think about quantum physics. Fireworks are mainly products of chemistry, and to design them one must have a very extensive understanding of chemical reactions, I believe, but they are also art. It's a fusion of art and science. It's a job for people with brains like me, brains that don't really lean one way or another, brains that make choosnig career paths difficult. Even though I don't really like chemistry, I think it'd be a fun job.

Fireworks are illegal in our main city, but there is a small city right outside the city where they are legal, and there are fireworks everywhere out there on the Fourth. We drove out there and watched other people's and set our own off. I really like artillery shells and Roman candles (these sort of hand-held mini artillary shells which may actually be illegal- we didn't want to ask). Anyway, it was really fun, the sky exploding with a massive amount of beautiful chemical reactions.

Also, I might as well say that I really like the Fourth of July, but not so much for what it celebrates. I understand the breakthrough of the Declaration of Independence- and find it ironic that it was based on the ideas of Loche, a European- but I also don't think America is independent because only those men with those ideas could free it. I think that Paine was right- a planet cannot control a satellite that exceeds it in size. England would have inevitably, in my opinion, lost control over the colonies, whether it happened in 1776 or later. So I think that the Fourth of July shouldn't be as much about that original independence as about all of the people that have died since then to try to maintain the country. Even if our government has some major issues, I believe it's doing a bit better than those authoritarian or gurella (sp?) governments in Africa or wherever. If the poor are being subjugated, it is not because of some sort of conscious alliance against them, it is an unfortunate flaw in the economic system. I believe that democracy- ours, or parliamentary, or whatever- is workable, more workable anyway than a lot of governments, and I believe that all of those stupid liberal democrats that won't quit complaining about our government should look at the world, in places like Africa, and see what they can do to bring them up from the ashes to at least some sort of humane level.

People look down their nose, sometimes, on the soldiers that have died in America during wars that have proved unprodcutive or wrong (ie Korean, Vietnam, possible Iraq- it remains to be seen), but the point is that they believed in what we have enough to die for it, and that will always be worth honoring, even if they died in a futile war. That's what I think we should celebrate on Independence Day.