Another great Fourth of July in Kansas

 From Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner:

Last night I had a good Fourth of July (Independence Day) celebration. We had a good spread of food, with pulled pork, bratwurst and potato salad. During the day we set off firecrackers, smoke bombs, cluster bombs and parachutes. During the night we set off all kinds of fountains, rockets, Roman candles, sparklers and buzz bombs.
So was this more about fireworks or an independence day celebration. Our fore fathers did break away from England. They also broke away clean from feudalism and aristocracy. They even inspired the French Revolution. And in the beginning it was a mostly white-man's government. Still we celebrate anyway.
Today I wonder how much of that revolution still seems similar. The father of our country, George Washington, told us to avoid foreign entanglements:

"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities"

-We just ignore that.
Last year, members of the Royal family came to this country and the news teams fell all over them as if they were our god appointed rulers. Thomas Paine would have rolled over in his grave. Here is what he said about kings:

"But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.
In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throw mankind into confusion. Holland without a king hath enjoyed more peace for this last century than any of the monarchical governments in Europe."

And I firmly go along with that.