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Independence Day is July 4th of each year and we love to celebrate with family gatherings, parades, cookouts and music.

Truthfully, we need no excuse to drink excessively, party obnoxiously, defy laws, to loud, over eat, watch evening fireworks displays, but even more, we love to blow shit up. Combining any of the above with explosives, and you have the American experience. Fire was invented for lighting fuses. Cooking was a distant second.

Literally, every Independence Day meme has things blowing up. There is nothing more Americana than a grill (fire), apple pie (oven), beer (brewing), racing boats or tricked out cars (internal combustion engines) and explosions. Breaking away from England was just and excuse to party and break HOA rules.

In recent years, many cities, towns and counties have outlawed or tightly restricted the sale and shooting off of fireworks. Such reasons as prevention of grass and roof fires, burns and injuries, noise and other damage to property. Sadly, these restrictions are to protect us from ourselves.

Among the many issues that divide this country is fireworks. For some, the right to shoot off fireworks is, or should be, in the constitution. In their view, our service members fought to protect the right to blow things up in their backyard (presumably not next to the outhouse) or the still. That means those pussies need to buck-up and not complain about patriots exercising their right to celebrate their big day. Put cotton in your eras, stay in your house and turn up the playing of “America the Beautiful.” For a few days you can plug your pie hole and not give us shit.

On the other side, those who refer to themselves as decent folks, don’t want loud explosions to scare their animals or their babies. Some folks are even traumatized by explosions, suffering from PTSD. They even have the audacity to use noise ordinances and fears of bottle rockets setting wood shingle roofs on fire.

This debate is an annual Liberty v. Government Overreach. Since this country was founded on muskets, rockets and canons, flames, gunpowder smoke and the red glare of death raining from the sky are things we want to replicate for ourselves. Who reads the instructions on flammable, exploding ordnance?

What about sparklers for the kiddies? Didn’t we call grow up holding onto things on fire? I did. One little problem. Sparklers burn at about 2000 degrees, as hot as a blowtorch. Children under the age of 12 are the second largest age group visiting emergency rooms around Independence Day.

On a walk tonight, I saw small children with their sparklers. Their parents had already ignited an array of fountains and exploding fireworks in the street. Illegally, of course. These were upper middle class folks, not Jim-Bob and cousin Elroy.

It’s interesting to see the haze of gunpowder and other fireworks residue floating over the neighborhood.

Blowing stuff up is not exclusively American, but is very American. We like to express ourselves, sometimes lawfully, sometimes not. July 4th is an important event in America’s history. I don’t mean to make fun of the holiday or what it represents, just some Americans who use it for their behavior. Celebrate safely and don’t bother your neighbors and those who are traumatized by loud, illegal noise. There are plenty of community fireworks displays and places outside of populated areas to blow things up.

Happy Independence Day!