UPDATE: Because this is really a Fourth of July cooking thread, and because I’m lazy and don’t wish to come up with another one in three days, I’m going to leave this one up. Feel free to add to is as the spirit moves. I’ll comment myself in a couple of days.
-Ed.
One of the things I’m loving about the SCOTUS Heller decision is that it happened the week before the Fourth of July. If you ever needed a reminder why Americans celebrate Independence Day, the affirmation of the Second Amendment as an individual right this past week would be it. Heller was a spot of brilliant calm within the maelstrom of idiocy in the current political season.
The United States is unique among the nations of the world. It is unique because of our clear understanding of the concept of inalienable rights; the rights we are born with. Those rights have never and can never be bestowed upon us by a mere government. Indeed, as a nation of individuals, we consent to be governed. This great nation of individuals is itself a check against the pernicious evolution towards tyranny that all governments aspire to.
The right of self defence can take many forms. The reason our justice system was designed with a presumption of innocence upon the accused was to give the accused an opportunity to defend themselves, placing the burden of proof upon the accuser. We can defend our homes, our property. We can defend our lives. Our government didn’t tell us we could do that. We created that government for the sole purpose of defending that, and other, rights.
The people who founded this nation understood that a gun is a tool, an extension of the individual. It was a tool that oft times enabled a man’s actual survival in a very harsh and dangerous world. They also understood that if we’re born with certain unalienable rights, then by damn, we, as individuals need the tools to defend those rights from anyone who would take them away. By any means necsesary, from a rock up to a rifle and anything in between, limited only by imagination, ingenuity and skill. It’s not a right to keep and bear guns. It’s a right to keep and bear arms, which is a very important distinction to me. Arms are defined by their times and by the level of technology in which they’re borne.
Needless to say, I join the Editor in celebrating what should have been obvious to a lot of Americans, if not the rest of the world.
Which brings me to hot dogs.
The Fourth of July is next Friday, and I’m going to be on hiatus that weekend. I’m headed out of town, and I’m going to be too busy worshiping at the altar of the mighty grill to be coming up with a Cooking Thread.
As we celebrate our rights as free people - as Americans - let us know what your plans for the Fourth consist of, and what you’re going to eat and drink. And, because of DC v. Heller, why not include your firearms memories in the mix?
As for me? Fireworks? Of course! And no nanny state muthaf*$ker is going to tell me different. I plan to cook like a demon, eat, drink and make lots of loud noises out in the country. There will be fireworks and gunfire. Music. A long, wide porch with rocking chairs and a huge crock of iced tea. Homemade ice cream with bottles of ale dunked in the resluting ice slush. Slabs of roasting meat. Lush, cool salads. The sun will go down, leaving the bats zooming down the porch and the lightnin’ bugs twinkling like constellations in the woods across the valley accompanied by the sound of fireworks near and far.
Have fun, y’all.
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Seems like a good idea … I’ll be watching the responses, if you are sharing them.