THE JULY 4TH DELUSION (WE ARE NOT OK)

In 2012, neuroscientist Sam Harris wrote an op-ed called "The Fireplace Delusion." You should look it up and read the whole thing. But I'll summarize it briefly here:

Combustion always produces harmful byproducts. And the combustion of wood indoors is particularly harmful, being 30 times as carcinogenic as cigarette smoke. Not only is having a fire in a fireplace harmful to the occupants of the home, it's harmful to all nearby residents!

What's also universally true is that people love fires in fireplaces. It feels--literally warm and fuzzy. It ties us back to our primal roots. No one wants to hear that the practice is harmful. And they will fight you tooth and nail about it.

Harris' op-ed was an obvious allegory for "god" belief. In it he recommended the cleaner alternative of fake logs and a gas fireplace. This is a bit like switching over from religion to "spirituality." Demonstrably less harmful. But still not harmless.

As we've now found out, even gas stoves produce elevated levels of toxic benzene that have measurably negative health effects, especially for children!

The analogy maps almost perfectly onto religion and spirituality.

Phasing out gas stoves is the next step to improve indoor air quality. Predictably, the same usual suspects who love combustion--and worship "gawd" or the "universal spirit"--are furious.

Combustion hits all the same notes as religion. It makes people feel good, it's deeply embedded in cultural tradition, and it's massively harmful not only to practitioners, but also children and bystanders.

Which brings me to July 4th.

You know where I'm going with this. Same issue, same cultural pushback. "How dare you question our most important national holiday?!? What's wrong with you?!? If you don't love America, GET OUT!!"

But what is July 4 really about?

Well, first, it's about nostalgia. The ultimate nostalgia, really. Since it commemorates the very first event in the history of our nation. The problem is, the nation we built following the July 4, 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence, was wildly unjust. It may or may not have been an improvement over British rule. Consider a living example of what might have been:

Canada represents the alternative road not taken by the US, as a nation that remained a British colony. I think the outcome speaks for itself. Canada has a parliamentary system of government that is far more proportionally representative than the US Electoral College, and especially our malapportioned Senate. Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms is far superior to the US Bill of Rights in many ways. But chiefly, it was updated in 1982 to reflect modern realities, including an explicit non-discrimination clause. It also applies equally to all provinces, not just the federal government. So the "state's rights" argument is moot. Canada also gained universal health care in several stages in the years between 1962 and 1984.

It also bears repeating here that the United Kingdom abolished slavery in stages between 1807 and 1838, decades earlier than the United States.

Following the Revolutionary War, the American people gained their freedoms in fits and starts, with many significant reversals. The Bill of Rights wasn't adopted until 1791. And it contained no language of non-discrimination. As such, it only applied to white men. Equal Protection was established by the 14th Amendment, which wasn't ratified until 1868, *nearly a century after the Declaration of Independence.* Women didn't get their turn at citizenship for another 52 years!! The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote in 1920, but the proposed Equal Rights Amendmend (which would have been the 27th Amendment) languished from when it was first proposed in 1923, to 1982 when it passed its final deadline for ratification, unratified.

It's such a simple thing, really. "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

Why is this controversial? We know why. The religious patriarchy. The most important "freedom" on which the US was founded, is the "freedom" to discriminate. Every other modern democracy recognizes female equality, but for the USA, that has always been a bridge too far.

Over the past 60 years we've tried to build legislative and judicial frameworks to support civil, women's, and LGBT rights. Brave Americans have fought and died and dedicated their lives to these pursuits: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Voting Rights Act of 1965, Griswold v. Conneticut in 1965, The Fair Housing Act of 1968, Roe v. Wade in 1973, Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.

Each and all of these acts and decisions have come under furious assault from conservatives. In 2013, SCOTUS invalidated key portions of the Voting Rights Act, and only a year ago overturned Roe v. Wade. Last week, SCOTUS gutted affirmative action and ruled against key non-discrimination precedent for public accommodations.

This is infamy of the highest order. Which is why there is absolutely nothing to celebrate this July 4th.

What does celebrating July 4th actually mean? A quote from Don Draper in the TV series Mad Men, sums it up best:

"Teddy told me that in Greek, 'nostalgia' literally means 'the pain from an old wound.' It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards... it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel, it's called the carousel. It let's [sic] us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved... It's not about what happened, what's going to happen. No, it's about... it's about when you -- It's not about technology, it's about the human heart, about the desire to go back home again."

And that's the whole enchilada, right there. July 4th is an orgy of nostalgia for an America that never actually existed. For that fireplace that's actually poisioning you. For that religion that makes you believe you can survive death. That you are OK, that everything is going to be OK.

Don Draper continues:

"Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is OK. You are OK."

But we're not OK. We're a nation that routinely hates half its population. We're hurtling headlong into climate disasters for which there is no longer any solution. We're facing an armed citizenry that routinely commits public slaughters of children while continuing to insist that gun ownership is "OK."

And here's the final irony: Mass shootings peak every year on July 4th and 5th. That's "OK," because we can't hear the carnage, over the din of millions of exploding fireworks.