If You Can Keep It...

I am really bummed that the BBB will be signed into law today. Not just because it will strip healthcare from millions, not just because it will explode the debt by trillions, not just because it will fund the American Stasi to continue and expand their reign of terror. Not just because it will take money from the people who need it the most and give it to the people who honestly won't even notice it. Not just because it will take away incentives for Clean Energy initiatives and give them to coal and oil putting not just the environment at risk but also the ability of the US to be part of the future of energy. Not just because there are even more awful things in there that we won't even fully understand until they take effect. Not just because it's only a capper to what the Meh Court has done to trim (completely saw off) the other branches of power and create an overreaching and overarching Executive branch.

But I'm really bummed because I like round numbers.

If this had passed next year, if he had signed it into law during the fucking White House Fourth of July picnic NEXT year, it would have been on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Two hundred and fifty is a nice round number. Declaration of Independence to Bending the Knee to a new King. It's a tidy amount of years. Sure, full of ebbs and flows but still, nothing to sneeze at really.

I've written before about how I think we talk about the dissolution of marriages incorrectly. That we say, oh their marriage failed. Especially if it was a long term marriage. Their marriage failed. Well, yeah, in the end they ended their marriage, but often they had a good run before that. Like say they got divorced after 20 years. Why do we discount the 19 good ones for the one bad one? Why don't we say, they had a really successful marriage. It lasted for 20 years. Now they are doing other things. We put the whole thing in the fail bucket.

Our country is falling apart. I believe the American Experiment is over. Or at least the American Experiment as we've lived it is. Whatever comes next will not be the same. If we are able to step back, wait, it's not step back from the edge anymore it's claw our way out of the pit, if we are able to claw our way out, we will not be where we were. It will be something different. The floor of the forest after a massive wildfire. The foundation of a building after an earthquake. We will be starting something new.

And if we don't claw our way out? Well that's going to be something different than we are used to as well.

It already is.

We have more than one set of friends who are planning on leaving. Leaving the United States to live out the rest of their lives someplace else. And we talked about it. We still sort of talk about it, but we know that Katie won't go so I won't go so Brent won't go. If Katie changes her mind and we can get out, we still might. And what an odd way to think about the good old USA. As a place that we would try to get out of, if we can. If we can escape. Escape the United States of America.

Yeah, it's not what it was. It will never be what it was. But maybe it will be better. Maybe those of us that stay, and some that leave but from a distance, will be able to fight our way through this. To be able to say, look, we had almost 250 years of the United States of America. We know what caused the collapse, let's try again with better supports. With firewalls in place.

Other countries have fallen to dictators and come back.

Two hundred and fifty years (almost) is a really good amount of time.

Here's to fighting for the next 250.

Happy Independence Day. May we someday feel that way again.