[In honor of today's holiday celebration, I post an essay I wrote the morning of Independence Day, 2005.]

Good morning, and may this be a grand Independence Day for you.

The older I get, and the wiser I become, so much the grander are these patriotic holidays we celebrate. Not that everyone celebrates them, which is too bad. But many of us do.

If I were to make a fine distinction between a conservative and a liberal (both worn out and confusing labels, no doubt), or between a rightist and a leftist, it might be this: that conservatives ultimately believe there is no REAL, ontological Bill of Rights, but a bill of privileges. Liberals, in contrast, raise rights to the status of idols, or gods, believing that not only are rights entitlements, they are ontological and natural facts. They are not abstractions. They are concrete. And the list of rights is an ever-increasing one.

I am not here to quibble over my distinction. I am not given to it with any sort of conviction. I am only here to ask a question: Which perspective engenders gratitude? Which perspective invokes a spirit of thanksgiving?

I firmly believe that the only healthy-minded perspective is that which sees everything life offers us as a gift, and a tenuous one at that. The gifts of life come in an overstuffed bundle of privileges that can only inspire awe, humility, and, not least, gratitude. There are no rights; people can't go find a right, or point to one, or put one in their pocket. And no one can demand that LIFE give them what they deserve, or that to which they are entitled. Everything is ultimately privilege.

Of course, I admit that rights have been given me, but the gift of rights itself is NOT a right. That gift is a privilege, a privilege earned throughout history, with conflict and bloodshed, sacrifice and prayer, and intellectual and spiritual agony forming the very foundations of that gift. Yes, I have the RIGHT to speak, or to VOTE, or to DISSENT, but I know in the core of my being that what I call rights are only legally secured privileges. Such rights could disappear in the swiftness of a coup, revolution, occupation, or the deft stroke of a nuclear holocaust on our nation's capitol.

Today, then, is another day of thanks. It is a privilege to breathe, to plan, to sit on the deck or dock or verandah or yacht, to ooh and aah at fireworks in the summer's night sky. But it is all the more a privilege to do these things freely, independently, without compulsion. We are free to celebrate today, or not. We are free to choose either bratwurst or burgers; beer or lemonade; ice cream or strawberry shortcake (or both). We are not behind bars; we are not under tyranny; we are not occupied.

Pray that it remains so. Pray to fight against those who would take it away. And pray, too, that Iraq someday will have its own national days of gratitude, without the vestiges of tyranny and compulsion forcing them to comply to the diktats of a few.

And pray that our country, the United States of America, not get so enamored of its gifts that it believes such gifts are entitlements, rights, or something far more idolatrous.

We are independent, and yet, paradoxically, our independence depends on whether we remember how tenuous independence is. If we forget that independence is a gift, we'll quickly find ourselves wishing we hadn't.

July 4, 1776. Remember why. Live free. Today. Tomorrow. Always.

(September 11, 2001. Never forget.)

©Bill Gnade

Independence Day, Liberty, Rights

[What follows may not be appropriate for a political blog, but no matter. Sometimes we need to set politics aside. -- bg]

I heard the Amber Alert on the radio. I was driving somewhere, tuned to a local station, when I heard the tones, the sirens; and then the message. Perhaps I was drawn in because I had not heard the Amber Alert before, at least on the station to which my radio was tuned. Perhaps I couldn't help myself as a father, as a concerned parent. Perhaps I could not help myself because it was the first-ever Amber Alert from Vermont.

Brooke Bennett, 12 years old, last seen -- .

Yesterday Brooke Bennett was found, buried off a gravel road, alongside a maple sugar shack; what should be sweet in that idyllic Vermont countryside is no more. I weep, and I am not sure why. I can't explain why I prayed for her, when I have not prayed for all of the girls I've heard about who have vanished; who have been so brutalized. Maybe I can't do it but once or twice a year; perhaps I can't pray without ceasing. Maybe no one can.

That Brooke Bennett was murdered is hellish enough. But her story is far darker, far more distorted, than I had imagined. It is too dark to glimpse at; it's a darkness that scars the retina of the soul. One can't look without suffering loss. And if one cannot look at it without suffering, imagine living -- and dying -- through it.

Fathers, sons, brothers and all noble men. I bid you to purge your hearts -- with me -- of anything that is sexually impure; love your women, your wives, daughters, sisters and girlfriends. Let all women know that you are safe, as safe as angels; let us all live in such a way that no woman -- ever! -- sees demons where there should be gentlemen, rays of light ... and protectors of all that is good, lovely, pure.

And may the mercy of God, and the grace of His love, restore Brooke Bennett, now and forevermore.

Peace.

BG

How embarrassing.

Barack Obama promised the other day in Unity, New Hampshire that one of his presidency's top priorities would be to ensure that women would get "equal pay for equal work." Now the junior senator might have to issue a broad mea culpa. Or something else.

During a campaign stop in New Mexico recently, Mr. Obama told supporters

"McCain is an honorable man... but when you look at our records and our plans on issues that matter to working women, the choice could not be clearer. It starts with equal pay."

Now the Cybercast News service, citing a report from the US Senate secretary, reports that Mr. Obama actually pays his women staffers less than his male staffers, while Mr. McCain actually has more women on his staff than Mr. Obama and pays them more than his male staffers.

Check out the Cybercast report here (it includes a link to the Senate report).† It should make for an interesting discussion over lunch with your coworkers. Unfortunately, the report does not spell out the other half of the equation -- "for equal work" -- so Mr. Obama should be able to rather easily save face (unless, of course, his staff finds out).

Hell hath no fury, Mr. Obama ...

Peace.

BG

†[addendum, 7.3.08 -- The story does NOT include a link to the Senate report. I was wrong.]

The inimitable James Taranto deserves praise here, especially for this rather apt reminder:

"The point is this: If you vote for Democrats on the theory that Republicans are a threat to civil liberties, caveat elector. Bill Clinton and his administration incinerated children at Waco, undertook the policy of "extraordinary rendition," used a grand jury investigation to intimidate journalists at The American Spectator, deported Elian Gonzalez to communist Cuba, and signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which restricts the habeas corpus rights of American citizens."

How could I have forgotten?

Peace.

BG

OK. Despite the fact that we are all about full and responsible freedom here at NH Insider, you have to read "Global Warming As Mass Neurosis" by Bret Stephens. It is simply and unequivocally brilliant.

Mr. Stephens poses a very serious challenge to global warming "science" this morning in today's Wall Street Journal, and this excerpt is particularly daunting:

"This ... is, of course, a forecast, not an empirical observation. But it raises a useful question: If even slight global cooling remains evidence of global warming, what isn't evidence of global warming? What we have here is a nonfalsifiable hypothesis, logically indistinguishable from claims for the existence of God. This doesn't mean God doesn't exist, or that global warming isn't happening. It does mean it isn't science."

No dispute here. Should there be?

And then he tosses us this gem:

"A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence."

And then:

"Listen carefully to the global warming alarmists, and the main theme that emerges is that what the developed world needs is a large dose of penance. What's remarkable is the extent to which penance sells among a mostly secular audience. What is there to be penitent about?

"As it turns out, a lot, at least if you're inclined to believe that our successes are undeserved and that prosperity is morally suspect. In this view, global warming is nature's great comeuppance, affirming as nothing else our guilty conscience for our worldly success."

Mr. Stephens ends strong referencing William James' stellar Varieties of Religious Experience, though I believe he fudges a bit what Mr. James meant by "sick-souled." Nevertheless, this is a tight and astounding essay, written to the pith, cutting to the marrow.

(If you have not read "Yellow Science" over at First Things, you are missing something special. Author James Kerian convincingly compares global warming science to yellow journalism. Fascinating.)

Peace.

BG