Happy Independents Day!

The second day
of July, 1776
will be the most
memorable Epocha
in the History
of America.

----John Adams
letter to his wife Abigail
July 3, 1776

.

In honor of the most notable day in American History (second only to Coast Guard Day, August, 4, don't miss it), I'm going to wax statesmanlike and say both major parties are blowhard-heavy, vision-short, power-grubbing and none too fun at parties (including their own). Unfortunately, no third party is terribly exciting either. In fact, I have a hard time imagining belonging to any party currently living in these United States.

I wish we, as a people, took sufficient enough interest in our affairs that parties could not survive. Yes, granted, parties would likely grow out of big campaigns (eg, president) or in response to urgent issues (eg, the aluminum standard), but once the elections are over, in my world, said parties would dissolve and we would all be merely interested citizens holding intelligent discourse amongst ourselves.

This will never happen. Reason Number One: Far too few of us know enough to form sensible opinions about anything. Reason Number Two: Far too few of us care. Reason Number Three: Far too many of us are willing to be led about by madmen and loudmouths.

But in the Thutopia, these things are not true. We all care. We are all reasonably informed. Any one of us would be willing to serve a term if it seemed proper. And any one of us would be gracious in defeat, allowing that likely the public knew best.

Oh.

And in the Thutopia, everybody celebrates Coast Guard Day sincerely and in the way it was meant to be celebrated:

Buying me presents.

There are still 32 shopping days left.

After all, if we can't read newspapers and make America great, we can still make the world a better place.

Thutopia is now.

Buy presents.