It seems there is no national holiday with sanctimony that lies beyond the grasp of America's ever-expanding chickenhawk population. Labor day is meant to honor the contributions of workers to the American fabric. Veterans day is meant to honor those who have risked their lives to defend America and her interests abroad; memorial day is meant to honor those who have lost their lives in such pursuit. And the Fourth of July is supposed to be a day for all Americans to look back and appreciate that once upon a time, a group of English terrorists risked everything to forge a democracy from tyranny. To commemorate these four distinct occasions, an outsider would likely assume that four distinct sets of rituals are observed--much the way Christmas and Easter celebrations are overtly distinguishable from one another. But said outsider would quickly learn that Americans honor their workers, veterans, fallen warriors, and founding fathers in the exact same fashion--by drinking beer, grilling red meat, and setting off fireworks. To anyone who holds any--or all--of these four groups in even a modestly high regard, this is an embarrassing display of guilty pleasure running amuck and subverting what might otherwise be a vibrant western culture.
To a chickenhawk, there is nothing wrong with setting off fireworks, but had any of them ever actually been in battle, they would surely bear the same concerns as many PTSD-suffering veterans--that firework celebrations are incredibly detrimental to the therapeutic progress of someone who has been traumatized by excessive gunfire and overhead explosions. Should we seek to help our ailing veterans, there is no choice to be made--fireworks must become a thing of the past, like slavery, manifest destiny, arranged marriages, polygamy, segregation, and an American electorate comprised of exclusively white land-owning men. Or we can stick with the fireworks--effectively saying "fuck the veterans"--and keep the beer and barbecues coming. But it should at least be acknowledged that these chickenhawk rituals of ours are hurting the very people we should be honoring.