Fourth of July: From Celebrating Independence to Loving War and the State

Lew Rockwell's Butler Shaffer questions why certain holidays - which were meant to celebrate peace and limited government - are now co-opted to celebrate war and ever bigger government. The article gets goofy at the end, but it starts out with a bang:

I have long been a critic of the state’s co-option of holidays to serve governmental purposes, thus negating the messages these holidays originally served. July 4th – designed to celebrate independence from the state – has been refashioned as a holiday for revelling in the state’s favorite activity, war. Television treats us to a seemingly endless supply of John Wayne films, urging us to embrace the contradictory idea that submitting ourselves to increased state power is the way to promote our liberty! It is such twisted thinking that leads those who refuse to examine the content of their minds to bleat about the soldiers who "fight for our freedom." What nonsense. Shall we next be told that Sunset Boulevard hookers are peddling virtue?