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Editorial
Independence Day: Too Much Cable News Can Darken All Horizons

Brexit, Istanbul. NAFTA and all trade deals. Clinton and Trump; Benghazi and Atlantic City.

I've been visiting a home where cable news is playing nonstop and the level of tension in the air is thick. Occasionally the man of the place, in his 80s and basically blind, comes out to mutter about how bad the world is. Everything's going to hell, he says, as Fox "analysts" speak in near-panic tones from the background.

Meanwhile, it's gorgeous outside except for the occasional thunderstorm. The dog's laying in the lawn looking over an expanse of water eyeing birds. The kids are in the pool, cooling off from a hectic water balloon fight. It's the Fourth of July weekend ahead, with the holiday itself falling on a Monday. Blessings! Even the forecasts look good.

I don't want to go to where the 80-something is, sure that life's gotten worse over the years. Should I bring up his early years during the Great Depression or World War II, the endless fears of the Cold War years, or vicious battles regarding Civil Rights and student rights and women's rights and gay rights? Or the tightness with which everyone had to balance budgets, once upon a time. Remember poorhouses and ghettos? Or the rage of the young against their elders?

The cable news blathered on. Some talked about how the Brexit vote was a cry for help from those who wanted just to be left alone. Forget refugees and open borders. On the other hand, regrets about how the vote started rising, even from those who'd voted for isolation.

Here in the States, one candidate started bragging about how he'd told everyone things would turn out this way. He as much as called for the end of treaties, and Europe, and then his party seemed to back him... threatening an entire lifetime of hard work towards peace. In the house I was in, talk turned mean about how the young have voted for one thing and the old are holding back progress. The argument? That elders had to be respected. That sometimes things had to be done the right way.

In other words... convolutions.

And so back we come to Independence Day, a time for summer fun, parades and fireworks, readings of the Declaration, and maybe even a bit of contemplation of what it is, has been, and will always be to be American.

Could it be political in-fighting, as evidenced most strongly in our Civil War, or overseas now in the nation we broke off from 240 years back, that is key to who we are? A need to meddle in other nation's troubles whenever they show up on our cable news channels? A simple love of entertainment and leisure? Or something much grander, which mixes undying idealism and wonkish pragmatism; that balances a respect for good governance with a wish to go it alone; or which shares a sense of community and helping our fellow countrymen with an arms-open embrace of the many worlds we came from to make this experiment in democracy work?

What about capitalism, free markets, political correctness, egalitarianism, and the best welfare that can be had by all? Ah, those are all things that came AFTER independence, along with second amendment rights and other items to battle over. What we celebrate this weekend is the embarkation point for our experiment as a nation born of pure democracy... one that took decades for all former colonists to embrace as Americans, and even longer for our so-called "founding fathers," as well as all the great thinkers and doers who have kept coming ever since, men and women, to work at perfecting, and cleaning of fault lines.

No, what we celebrate isn't perfection, or exceptionalism, but the ideal of fought-for experimentation. And all the ensuing struggles and challenges and victories and losses that experiment has entailed in getting us to where we are today.

Is it worse than what came before? Isn't that simply a matter of perception?

For the coming weekend, I'm choosing to say things are better than they've ever been. Sure, there are problems everywhere... but also greater means to overcome them than ever.

Along with what promises to be great weather in a great place.

For that we sing Allelujah!



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