How many more birthdays does America have left?

As America celebrates its 233rd birthday, it is worth taking a moment to ask, How many more birthdays does America have left?

The fireworks burn bright. The flags wave high. There are proud salutes and marching bands. There are hot dogs and frankfurters. But those are the trappings, and what is inside them? Yesterday I passed by numerous smoking grills, fireworks and cheerful families. There was only one minor detail wrong. The flag that hung behind them was the Puerto Rican flag, not the American flag.

One minor detail that showcases how little easy it is to throw away the substance of America, when you have already replaced everything meaningful with empty showmanship. When you have done that, throwing out the few things that remain becomes very easy. Absurdly easy then to wrap socialism or communism in the red, white and blue, to shoot off firework displays around it while waving the flag. And when you do it long enough, no one will even bother to notice whose flag it is you're waving.

A news headline reads, "Tea party protests marr independence day". As if Independence Day were not there precisely for things such as the Tea Party protests, more than for consuming fast food, watching the lights in the sky and cheering when an unelected socialist leader delivers his carefully scripted address. But that is how a nation falls. That is how a nation dies. Before its cities burn and its name dies, its soul dies first. And when the soul is dead, all that is left is a corpse being propped upright by the cheering crowds.

How many birthdays then does America really have left?

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