666

From its earliest days as a combination chop-shop and Buddhist escort service, the Ministry of Linus has always strived to bring you the finest in iconoclastic heretical blasphemy, served up in a waffle cone of self-deprecating hypocrisy. For those who are keeping score, today is the 666th attempt to do just that, and we are in luck - today's post coincides with the 4th of July, a national holiday absolutely full to the brim with hypocrisy! That this post bears the number of the beast is fitting - the beast would be proud of the mockery of clear thinking this day entails.

Yes children, today is the day we celebrate our freedom and independence from our oppressive overlord and now BFF, Great Britain. Naturally, we do this by searing dead flesh and then firing small rockets into the night sky. Clearly, I could make an entire post from simply ridiculing each of these activities, but really, it's just too easy. Certainly, the irony of celebrating our freedom by eating the flesh of our slaves (animals) and commemorating our national independence by launching fireworks made largely in Mexico or overseas is quite apparent to all Flockers worthy of that title. No, this post will be about the true hypocrisy of today, and the muddled thinking of nationalists the world over - the idea that there is such a thing as independence.

We have declared for 232 years now that we are an independent state. Well, actually, a bunch of little independent states that are united, but that distinction has long been obscured by patriotic fervor. Ok - so how independent are we?

Do we grow all of our own food?
Do we mine/drill all of our own fuel?
Do we make all of our own goods?
Do we do all of our own labor?

Do we, in fact, stand on our own in any way?

Of course not. We are deeply intertwined with other peoples and other nations all over the world, and always have been. In fact, no nation, no state, no organization, no faction, no party, no clan, no family and no man is truly independent. We rely on others from the day we are born until the day we die - and actually, we rely on others even outside the narrow window known as life. Long before we're born we're counting on another for nutrition and safety, and we hope that after we die someone takes care of our corpse in some way.

The simple act of living entails connection and interaction with others. Even when we try to stand on our own, we consume resources in ways that affect others. Consider the gun nut who builds his own compound in Idaho - even his walled enclosure was made with cinder blocks manufactured by others, and his septic tank enriches the land that will some day be another man's garden. No man is an island, as the saying goes, but even if he was, he'd be polluting the water around him some how.

No, we are all in this together, and today is no exception. By all means, enjoy the pretty lights in the sky tonight, and be thankful for the liberties that we enjoy, but don't kid yourself - America, and everyone in it, is about as independent as one leg of a tripod. Perhaps some day, we'll celebrate a holiday that commemorates the day we all recognized our unity as members of this globe - we can call it "We Pulled Our Heads out of Our Asses Day".

Ok, you're right - "Unity Day" will fit better on the sale flyers...