Happy 248th, 'Murica! And thanks, George Washington. Without you, we wouldn't have the Super Bowl, the World Series, or cold beer.

Musings about America on Independence Day. I'd really like to get to our 249th.

Photo by Reba Spike on Unsplash

Fifty summers ago, I graduated from George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester, KY. It was a completely magical summer. I decided to have a fandango before heading off to the University of Kentucky that fall. Little did I know what was ahead for me. That’s the way that it works; we fumble along as best we can. Some days you get the bear; some days the bear gets you.

The film Fandango, alluded to above, is one of my all-time favorites. It’s a whimsical testament to the privileges of youth and a nostalgic fable about how many of the most important doors in our lives open only one way. This movie introduced me to the music of Pat Metheny. Every time I perform September Fifteenth or It’s For You at a show, I think about a Cessna 172 landing on a lonely West Texas highway. Have a nice life.

Rockcastle County, KY, June 1974

I rode a bicycle all around the state of Kentucky that summer. I was interested in politics and current events in high school, and I wanted to understand what people out in the world thought about things. I was born curious like that. I talked with people in country stores, ice cream stands, and drugstore counters all over the state about Watergate, Vietnam, Nixon, Ford, and anything else that any of this led to. It was a useful journey that adjusted my perspective on a lot of things. That perspective has lasted to this day.

The summer of ‘74 segued into the fall and my first semester of college. It was off to the rest of my life. What a long, strange trip it’s been. And while I don’t think that by any means it’s over just yet, there are surely fewer days ahead than behind. I can attest to the fact that on this issue, Jackson Browne was right; no matter how aware you are of the time going by, in the end, it does seem like the wink of an eye.

America is still a young country. We’ve accomplished a lot in 248 years—most of it good, though certainly not all. America is the first post-Enlightenment experiment in democracy. We are the only nation on earth to fight a war, sacrificing over three-quarters of a million of our own citizens to free slaves. We are governed by the rule of law rather than monarchs and by a constitution rather than religious scripture.

America has fought wars against unambiguous evil around the world and battled corruption in our own midst. We discovered the secrets of the atom in our universities and laboratories. We are the first and only society to place humans on the moon. We invented flight, air conditioning, electrical power distribution, movies, jazz, television, almost every first in computing, and the Internet.

We also invented hamburgers, hot dogs, baseball, basketball, football (not that sissy futbol crap), and, perhaps most importantly of all, the electric guitar.

‘Murica, baby! The Brits and Europeans can’t find their way from their heads to their asses with their hands. Canada and Mexico are the reasons that we have borders that aren’t oceans. The Chinese gifts to the world are copyright infringement and respiratory viruses. The Middle East, in its favor, has Israel (which is like America sans sports and with hummus instead of good food), but beyond that, is filled with nimrods stuck in the 14th century. The Commie Ruskies are responsible for gulags, cars that literally and figuratively stink, and lousy nuclear power plants. India? Have you dealt with customer service lately? Africa? South America? Forgetaboutit.

Australia is cool, though. Good on ya, mates! And I, personally, dig Japan. Any culture that comes up with Godzilla is OK by me.

OK, for the easily offended (you know who you are), that jingoism was humor, pardner. Snap out of it! Or pony up for the paid subscription if you want to light me up. It’ll pay for the brewskies I quaff while reading the comments.

The thing about contemporary America that bothers me the most is how underappreciated it is by a lot of the people who are lucky enough to live here. We’ve grown fat and lazy on that account. If you were born in this country, circumstances almost notwithstanding, you won the lottery.

In America, life can be rough, but it’s almost always fair. That’s why millions of people endure the hardships of dangerous journeys of thousands of miles to get here from other places. There’s opportunity aplenty in America, and that opportunity isn’t generally predicated on who your daddy and mommy are, what you look like, or where you go to church. You can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps in this country—something that appears to be lost on roughly half of the folks who are lucky enough to already be here.

Is it perfect? Nah. But when you look around, it’s pretty darn good.

The divide in awareness about the greatness of this country isn’t between left and right; it’s between those who thank their lucky stars every day for being here and those who piss, moan, and complain about everything that doesn’t go their way.

On the right, we have Americans who despise the idea of any religious theocracy except for the one that they’d foist on the rest of us if given a chance. We have those who ignore any part of our constitution that’s inconvenient to whatever undemocratic stuff they are trying to impose on the rest of us. To hear elements of the right go on, everything wrong with America may be cured with liberal application of biblical principles and draconian intolerance of anything outside of their social comfort zone and intellectual safe space.

On the left, we have Americans who dispute that we’ve accomplished anything good in the last 248 years. Elements of the American left and their allies in the media, the bureaucracy, and higher education maintain that they are the sole standard bearers for political and social virtue. What they are actually doing, of course, is guarding their own interests (just like the folks on the other side). Their shtick is to be on the virtuous side of things by redefining language, science, and culture to represent virtue as what they want.

I don’t see much in the immediate future that seems likely to ameliorate the gap between these two disparate groups, who are animated mostly by their mutual disgust with each other. The resulting tribalism is endemic in our society and is pushing our political process to the brink of failure. When Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the two most likely choices to lead the greatest country in the world come next January, it’s just about all over except for the slow walk and sad singing.

You cannot sustain a democracy in a society where a critical mass of individuals on either side of an issue hate the other side badly enough to want to die with their hands around the other side’s throats. “Winner takes all” isn’t the way that this country was designed. In fact, it was very carefully designed to specifically make change difficult without debate and compromise.

Yeah, I know, that part about compromise and debate is nowhere to be found, in a literal sense, anywhere in your pocket constitution (or The 1619 Project). It’s called reading for comprehension. You should give it a shot.

Perhaps our biggest problem with tribalism is that it protects a lot of bullshit and punishes a lot of truth. That's par for the course only in kindergarten and contemporary politics, and it’ll be our undoing if we’re not careful. The fact that we live in what is right now the greatest country on earth isn’t a given; it must be earned every day. And I think that on that account, we are, right now, falling asleep at the wheel (if not outright driving while impaired).

I’ve written this many times before, but it bears repeating today. The cost of freedom isn’t just toting a rifle through a rice paddy somewhere; it’s understanding that everyone else is free just like you are. Not everyone will choose to exercise their freedom in ways of which you approve, but as long as they are exercising them within the constraints of the law, that’s just too bad for you. That’s the cost of freedom.

Can’t handle that? Go find a benevolent dictatorship somewhere that you can live with. They’re out there.

Happy 4th! Here’s hoping that we make it to our 249th Independence Day.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.