Fourth of July

(Found here)

“Most places these days treat the Fourth of July as a strangely anachronistic holiday—a celebration of liberty (didn’t we get rid of that?) when what we really need is more regulation, more laws to protect us from our own dangerous predilections.

. . . the things that most deepen us and rouse us are dangerous. The attempt to abolish all dangers turns us into what C. S. Lewis calls ‘men without chests.’ An appetite for the real good means being willing to face danger, and the whole point of the liberty we celebrate is that we learn to handle danger, to face it responsibly, with care and virtue.

. . . What we need is an education in the powers and dangers that come with our full participation in being human. Our real powers need liberty as fire needs air.”
~Glenn Arbery