What's your Permies take on the 4th of July?

It's about going to the casino to buy fireworks then spending a week blowing the county up.  

Eric Thomas wrote:I read the Declaration of Independence.  Always strikes me hard that it's written to be read aloud, real loud.  Still is in our town, I've read where some places have stopped; too inflammatory or something like it.  Can't help but ponder that when it was written, more than 95% of our nation were self-sustaining farmers, or very close to it.  Occurs to me that would constitute real freedom if we could get back to that state, or at least closer.  To me the DoI is simply a clear statement to 'just leave me alone and let me do my thing" but doesn't absolve you of doing the right thing (and being nice).  How convoluted it has become.  

John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Chapter 21, Section 42 wrote:Happiness and misery are the names of two extremes, the utmost bounds whereof we know not... But of some degrees of both we have very lively impressions; made by several instances of delight and joy on the one side, and torment and sorrow on the other...

John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Chapter 21, Section 36 wrote:For, as much as whilst we are under any uneasiness, we cannot apprehend ourselves happy...pain and uneasiness being, by every one, concluded and felt to be inconsistent with happiness...that which of course determines the choice of our will to the next action will always be- the removing of pain, as long as we have any left, as the first and necessary step towards happiness.

John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Chapter 21, Section 61 wrote:But as soon as any new uneasiness comes in, this happiness is disturbed, and we are set afresh on work in the pursuit of happiness.

Me wrote:There is no mention of property or "possessions" here, only a very clear definition of "Happiness" being a spectrum of experience we perceive through impressions of "delight and joy", and of its pursuit being the removal of the hindrances to those perceptions.

Tristan Vitali wrote:I truly do believe that permaculture, in all its varied forms and practices, are exactly in line with what the Declaration of Independence was purveying with its most famous second sentence. That "People Care" ethic is all about people having what they need to thrive, right? We permies, as trained and disciplined thinkers in whole systems approaches, should find a lot of encouragement in hearing an echo of the past reinforcing the messages we preach today.

Eric Thomas wrote:Hmmm....just thinking about this over coffee.   I think I can do this without scraping my fender on the Cider Press.

John Polk wrote:

It's about going to the casino to buy fireworks then spending a week blowing the county up.  

That stands to reason...
who else in the world has a national anthem with ..."Rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air..." ?

Our nation was forged through a war, and it has maintained itself with a (seemingly) continuous stream of wars.

 When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Julia Winter wrote:I like fireworks, but finding a safe place is super important:

Nicole Alderman wrote:

Julia Winter wrote:I like fireworks, but finding a safe place is super important:

Very true!

If it hadn't been such a wet year here, and we didn't have a nice big cement patio and cement siding and a metal roof and really wet, green grass, I wouldn't be nearly as inclined to have fireworks.

I spent yesterday watering everything around where we'll be doing the fireworks, and sweeping away all the grass clipping and bits of wood debris that had accumulated on our patio, so as to reduce the risk of fire.