We celebrate what is called “Independence Day “ every year and recently have added Juneteenth as a day of celebration.  Yet, rather than a gentle back slide to a time that never existed we are being catapulted several centuries back where some “ religious” leader or other determines what if any rights are meted out. Currently it’s the Roman Catholics who have a strangle hold on us since SCOTUS has six Catholic members.

It is long since that any “Christian” sect has bothered with what Jesus asked of us. Nowadays religious leaders send their acolytes off to ban books or pass laws that take away rights long held to be in place

Over the few days before and around Independence Day there were multiple incidents where folks exercising their right to assembly were murdered by other people exercising the only sacrosanct right,  The right to bear arms. Life, liberty pursuing happiness are out the window. No one in this country can simply enjoy any of those rights because no one is any longer safe anywhere. Bullets pierce walls and windows killing old and young in their homes. It is insanity to allow this kind of carnage. It’s madness to allow a small group of people to decide what books we can read or to re-write history to suit their preferences. We have watched proud little boys pretending to be patriots assaulting the capital, led by a sad version of a Don Juan or Don Corleone wannabe who is much more like Don Rickles flooding all and sundry with information likely to end lives and make everyone on the planet less safe.

We watch as the poor and huddled masses yearning to be free are bused from places, where apparently they are not wanted, to places vilified by the sender as dens of iniquity, where there are people who will in fact feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick and comfort the afflicted.      

The history of just the last century has shown that each time the nationalist sentiment rises to overwhelm more “liberal” ideas horrors occur. Communism and fascism led by people who had  a need to control others led to catastrophic wars. Israel is going down that path and it’s streets are sites of massive protests. When the tail wags the dog bad things happen.