"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."-Charles Austin Beard
A scream was released into the too careful silence. The house of cards the fool was building fluttered apart. The fool�s young face looked tired and defeated. Since the loss of her father, the fool�s social rigidity had started to falter. She was desperately trying to rebuild, basing her foundation on the fragile house of cards. She sighed, the last card flying out of place at her breath. With every ounce of strength she lost, the child grew. What would happen when she became the child�the foolish child? What would happen if she no longer existed? The other half could not function without the liaison between worlds. Unfortunately, that was exactly what the child wanted.
The little girl sat quietly in the corner staring at the fool. She winced when the fool had said with girlish glee, �Mel Gibson is so hot,� when they had agreed to see The Patriot. Obviously they went for different reasons.
It touched the little girl deeply that a man would sacrifice so much for the freedom of a country. People died so that we would be free. Free to do what? Free to talk on cellular phones? Free to sue each other for everything with some kind of greedy glee? Free to pipe up every time we don�t like something can call it an infringement on our basic human rights? At the same time as exercising our �rights� we are crushing the rights of someone else. Is that what the colonials died for? They had a great dream and as their descendants we have mocked it with greed and above all, shallowness. What does the 4th of July mean? It means a paid day off. It means fireworks. It means a family barbecue. Is that what Thomas Jefferson dreamed of when he drafted his heart and soul into the Declaration of Independence? Americans: the great freedom fighters-in an eternal war against communism, fascism, and all other �isms��except materialism. America�the land of opportunity; Americans�the jokes of the world. I long to have the big dreams of Jefferson, Paine, Washington, Franklin, Lincoln and all the other devoted colonials, but instead my mind has been conditioned by society to dream of money and what I�ll wear tomorrow. Perhaps this was exactly what our forefathers were dreaming of: protecting their children. Well, that is precisely what they did. However the children never seemed to grow up.
The little girl shook her head in disgust at the fool: the posterchild of American playing with her playing card dreams of social stability.
Ignorance is bliss.
J
