Friday, July 04, 2008
To the Bison's game last night, our first time this season. It was a 13 inning barn burner which the Herd lost, 7-6, after tying the game with a four run ninth inning charge. They lost the crowd as soon as they went into extras-- it was a full house, but most people were there for the Philharmonic and the fireworks.
The Philharmonic put on an odd concert-- a "Star Wars" medley, and a medley of songs from "The Jungle Book", but then they got down to cases and played a "Tribute to the Armed Forces". I suppose the 4th of July has always been a more or less martial holiday, and that it's me that has changed, but I'm pretty uncomfortable with the Reichsparteitag feel that these displays give off. It seems to me that honoring this aspect of the United States gets it exactly wrong-- our military history is, for the most part, the opposite of what is supposed to be great about America. It's the first nation that was formed out of an idea of what a just society ought to be, and the ideas that are our national foundation remain good ideas, even if largely aspirational. American Triumphalism, on the other hand is one of the great temptations our national character struggles with, and the sight of men in military uniforms, and the sound of stirring military music makes it far too easy to forget that these are children that we are sending into a meatgrinder. I don't like being manipulated that way, and I resent Independence Day being used like that. Far better, I think, to start the day the way NPR has started it for us for years now, by reading the Declaration of Independence. The opportunity to contemplate what we are supposed to be living up to, and holding our government to should be regarded as a patriotic act.
As a lawyer I regard the role of our glamor profession in our society as fundamental, and it pleases me that the law has been so important in making the United States a country which allows human potential to flourish. Our worst enemies have always been ourselves, of course, but because we value law, and believe in its strength, our worst impulses eventually fall. They are falling now, for example, as the courts are repudiating the Bush Administration's cynical rejection of our principles. It pleases me to think that Barack Obama may be our next President, as much for what that would demonstrate to the world about America as for any other reason.
The Philharmonic put on an odd concert-- a "Star Wars" medley, and a medley of songs from "The Jungle Book", but then they got down to cases and played a "Tribute to the Armed Forces". I suppose the 4th of July has always been a more or less martial holiday, and that it's me that has changed, but I'm pretty uncomfortable with the Reichsparteitag feel that these displays give off. It seems to me that honoring this aspect of the United States gets it exactly wrong-- our military history is, for the most part, the opposite of what is supposed to be great about America. It's the first nation that was formed out of an idea of what a just society ought to be, and the ideas that are our national foundation remain good ideas, even if largely aspirational. American Triumphalism, on the other hand is one of the great temptations our national character struggles with, and the sight of men in military uniforms, and the sound of stirring military music makes it far too easy to forget that these are children that we are sending into a meatgrinder. I don't like being manipulated that way, and I resent Independence Day being used like that. Far better, I think, to start the day the way NPR has started it for us for years now, by reading the Declaration of Independence. The opportunity to contemplate what we are supposed to be living up to, and holding our government to should be regarded as a patriotic act.
As a lawyer I regard the role of our glamor profession in our society as fundamental, and it pleases me that the law has been so important in making the United States a country which allows human potential to flourish. Our worst enemies have always been ourselves, of course, but because we value law, and believe in its strength, our worst impulses eventually fall. They are falling now, for example, as the courts are repudiating the Bush Administration's cynical rejection of our principles. It pleases me to think that Barack Obama may be our next President, as much for what that would demonstrate to the world about America as for any other reason.
// posted by Bill @ 1:41 PM 
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