"Cha-Ching, Cha-Ching, Cha-Ching."
Today we Americans celebrate our freedom...
...our freedom to spend other people's money. After all, this is a democracy, Dammitt!
...our freedom to own property, provided we pay our tithe to the arrogant landlord at the County Assessor's Office each year. After all, it costs a lot of money to educate our children so poorly.
...our freedom to be victimized by an exploitative economy in which big companies with lots of money spend billions to convince or coerce us into buying products and services we don't need based on false promises or legislative requirements.
...our freedom to elect representatives that don't live by the laws and restrictions they impose on us. Who ever thought of that?
...our freedom to pay for all kinds of things we fundamentally disagree with from war to abortion.
..our freedom to drink and be drunk, so long as the taxes and fees are paid in full (and we don't smoke).
...our freedom to alienate our own hearts by working at that which we hate to get dollars that could never be attained through doing that which we love.
Freedom is, and always has been, about money. At first it was about the dollars we didn't want to pay to an arrogant, unresponsive government. I wonder whether Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and a thousand other patriots that started this thing, and the thousands of veterans who have given their lives in the name of Freedom since, would be proud of us today for what we've let that Freedom become.
People are passionate about values, but they fight over money. When most Americans are drowning in debt, and the government - despite invasive taxes on every level of our economy - only funds 60% of the money it spends, freedom is a distant, hollow concept.