Why July 4th, 1776 Still Matters

As the US news networks gear up for a week of breathless Royal Wedding coverage--with continuous updates on the status of the dress, the guest list, the cake and what unnamed sources inside the castle are saying about the Queen's feelings about this, I can't help but wonder what our Founding Fathers would think about our continued fascination with British royalty.

Those men risked everything to fight the most powerful army and navy in the world at that time so we wouldn't have to worry about succession to the throne--or pay for the pomp and circumstance surrounding the marriage of in-breds.  And yet here we are, 242-years later planning to get up super early on Sunday morning to watch a guy that will never sniff the throne marry a B-list American actress and think it's "a fairy tale come true"!

If Benjamin Franklin had his way at the Constitutional Convention, the US would have had a king too.  He believed that a monarchy would have produced greater stability in government than the constant turnover of democracy--and it kept the uneducated from ruling over the elite.  But most of the Founders sided with George Washington, who warned his fledgling country about the dangers of getting involved in European affairs.

In his farewell address after his two terms as President, Washington suggested that all ties be cut with the Old World--and that the US set its own course free of the constant war that had besieged the Continent for centuries.  At that time, Washington referred to the threat of monarchy and colonialism limiting freedom.  He could not have known about the eventual European rise of Fascism, Communism and Socialism that would plunge the entire world into not one but two global conflicts, genocide, despair and terrorism.

The new European threat is Socialism 2.0: greater Government control of every aspect of your life disguised as "promoting the greater good", eliminating borders, challenging the sovereignty of independent nations, redistributing personal wealth and promotion of "group think".  The newest generation of Americans is enamored with ideas coming from a collection of nations that has failed miserably with governance for 2200 years--but now should be seen as the perfect example of what a society should be like.

So dive into details of how many jewels will be on the bride's dress, whether Elton John is on the invite list and how much luggage the happy couple will be taking on their honeymoon all this week.  The rest of us will wait until July 4th to celebrate the fact that we don't have to give a rat's behind about this.