Happy 4th of July!

Today is the 4th of July, America’s Independence Day when in the year 1776 13 constituent colonies of the British Empire decided they wanted to be independent.

Every year, America celebrates Independence Day although America is increasingly less independent and less free.

Every year big business, multi-national corporations, the Federal Reserve, big government, the deep state, foreign interests, foreign money and foreign conflict conspire to make the American people slightly less free and slightly less independent. What is the use of independence without fundamental liberties?

Russians are sympathetic to this plight even though the Russian nation has never had to win independence from any imperial power.

Nevertheless, Russia in the very recent past, the 1990s to be specific, has been un-free. People’s basic liberties as defined by Russia’s history were taken away from ordinary people and those who profited from the lack of freedom for Russia’s people were many of the same forces of global corporatism, power hungry lobbying groups, corrupt officials, disloyal officials and foreign money that threaten Americans’ ability to enjoy the independence they celebrate today.

Russia in the 1990s was a deeply un-free country, it was a sad country and a dependant country. Thanks to the leadership of President Putin and other patriotic Russian Ministers of State and patriotic opposition figures, the Russian people are once again free. They are free citizens of a country whose prosperity is growing, whose traditional compassion will no longer be killed off in a corporate feeding frenzy, whose sense of God and sense of civic patriotism is no longer molested by confused leaders beholden to alien interests.

While Russians and Americans have slightly different ideas of what it means to be free, the ability to define one’s sense of freedom is that which makes freedom the opposite of both slavery and blind universalist conformity.

Russia has chosen a path that fits her traditions and culture. This is Russian freedom, it is the freedom to be an individually strong, caring, independent minded person within the framework of a culture guided by centuries of tradition, shaped by the mighty wars fought by successive generations of Russians, the guidance of the Orthodox church and the great contributions of Russian composers, soldiers, poets, novelists, inventors, scientists, cosmonauts, athletes, scholars and political thinkers.

If Americans really had their freedom back, it might look more like 1776 than 2017. It would be about a rejection of overbearing taxes, a rejection of entangling foreign alliances, a rejection of spending Federal money abroad, a rejection of the infringement of personal liberties by the state, a rejection of the extremism of identity politics which puts sectarianism over both patriotism and individualism.

The Russia of today is in many ways more like the Russia of 1776 than America today is like the America of 1776.

Russians are a respectful people and many still admire many American achievements in spite of the difficulties in political relations over recent years.

On this 4th of July, perhaps Americans can remember how to be free on their own terms, just as Russians regained freedom on their own terms.

If America returned to its roots it could be not only a happier and more peaceful nation but a better friend to Russia and the wider world.

Happy Independence Day America.