Unknown Egyptian Artist:
Amulet of a Rooster
(Byzantine Period: 4th–7th century)

"Hip, hip, hooray!"

For me, the 4th of July has always been a most regrettable holiday. It seems to encourage that distasteful style of jingoism (there’s a tasteful style?) that has so often manifested during the worst moments of our now long shared history. Rather than gathering together to regret all the regrettable wars we have fought, including the one for independence from the British crown, we trot out the War of 1812 Overture, complete with a Marine Corps howitzer battery, and pretend to blow the living shit out of our living history, followed by an over-long fireworks display that scares the living daylights out of pets and actual veterans, who well understand that freedom isn’t just a handy holiday catchphrase, but a concept that means something so much more than war. It means a kind of Prosperity that cannot be purchased or leased, and that cannot be used as an offensive weapon. It stands for an unshakeable conviction to live without permission, to be a responsible member of a genuinely pluralistic society. To live and god damn let live without favor or prejudice.

Our incumbent, who now shows clear signs of Frontotemporal Dementia on top of his pre-existing, lifelong narcissistic personality disorder difficulties, delivered a speech last night in a lame attempt to rewrite history as something other than what every living soul should have already known actually happened. He bet that The People might just be stupid enough to rise to his bait and get hooked by the lamest excuse for a lure ever devised. He had filled his audience with people who were apparently precisely that stupid, for he received at least his usual rounds of applause. He had fighter jets fly over in a sorry attempt to out-jingo every previous jingoist that ever existed, and might have even succeeded, and it still didn’t work. He disgraced himself by committing more than his by now usual and expected shitting himself in public. We aren’t supposed to notice, but who could help but notice that? If something smells in the Oval Office and everywhere else our incumbent appears, it’s not Communism that’s threatening the republic; that’s for certain!

Freedom isn’t just the right to spout crazy shit in public, though that right has been sanctified by our common Constitution. Freedom seems like a special kind of Prosperity, one that requires some discipline from those who enjoy its many benefits. There are phony freedoms, Phreedoms, that some assert as if they could, for their own convenience, overlooking some of the more unsettling complications that actually accompany exercising freedoms. One might, as our incumbent did, invent a more convenient history to anchor his more treasonous assertions. One might also threaten others with taking away their freedom because one somehow feels threatened by the presence of difference. These are phony Phreedoms, ones we dare not celebrate, ones worth, perhaps, blowing to smithereens with those leftover fireworks we seem to treasure so damned much, despite what they inflict upon the most vulnerable among us. The freedom to bully others, regardless of the pulpit from which such hate speech emanates, is no freedom worth even distantly celebrating. It’s Phreedom, plain and simple, and the fucking antithesis of whatever this country was originally founded to preserve. He’d be a laughingstock this morning if what he said last night in any way qualified as funny, other than deeply tragic. Happy two-hundred-fiftieth anniversary, meathead!

We as a people exhibit plenty of shortcomings. We have repeatedly fallen far short of our highest aspirations, yet we have somehow managed, mostly, through two hundred and fifty years of history, to maintain those highest aspirations, even if we haven’t always managed to achieve even a distant shadow of their promise. We continue aspiring. Our incumbent surrendered last night, asserting Phreedoms not worth possessing, even if they had ever existed. Those who refuse to dream forfeit whatever this country might have been founded to preserve, and they are unworthy to serve in any position within this grand continuing experiment. If our nation was capable of reliably delivering on its originating promises, it would no longer be an experiment but a product, a static entity no longer evolving, even though our evolution sometimes tries to shove us backward, like last night, when our incumbent chose to perform as our utterly unconvincing village idiot in public.

Without freedom, Prosperity simply seems irrelevant. Those who propose imposing restrictions based upon artificial differences, like race, religion, national origin, political persuasion, gender, or taste, pursue Phreedoms unworthy of anyone possessing, even them. Prosperity demands more than compliance, more than ever more homogenization. Diversity, equity, and inclusion might be Prosperity’s three inescapable allies, for we cannot possess what we cannot freely acknowledge and even embrace and openly share as fundamentally different from us, and find our identity there, rather than anywhere else. Those who firmly believe in white supremacy undermine their own argument by asserting it. Asserting superiority might be the final tell that we’re dealing with somebody struggling under the influence of some poorly-cloaked inferiority complex, or a rapidly intruding Frontotemporal Dementia, or even an ever-advancing, lifelong narcissistic personality disorder, hardly a purpose for celebrating a national holiday. Hip, hip, hooray!

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz