Originally Posted by jayeff

There's no harm in everyone having some fun, with or without an excuse. At the same time, there is a sharp contrast between the energy and money that goes into a celebration which at least nominally is about the US gaining independence, and the near total lack of interest in where the country is and where it is going.

It was a pretty amazing thing to break away from Britain when we did and it produced some inspiring words in the form of the Constitution. Yet here we are, just a couple of hundred years and some later, getting obese in front of our TV's. It's probably naive to imagine that the majority of people cared too much then either, or really understood the issues involved. And maybe these days national boundaries are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Still it's rather sad that such lofty ideals so quickly got reduced to a couple of charred burgers, half-a-dozen cans of Bud Lite and a firework display.