I was at some friends’ barbecue the other day and one of the young ladies brought up the fact that she’s involved in an 18th-century reenactment group. One of the other partygoers—remember this is Massachusetts—asked, her nose wrinkled in discomfort: “Why do people do that? Are they try to force their patriotism on people?”
I turned to her, smacked her upside the head and remonstrated with her, “Maybe they’re trying to make sure people like you don’t forget what our forefathers went through, spilling their own blood, so you could have the freedom to spout asinine nonsense like that.”
Okay, I didn’t do that. But I wish I had.
The conversation devolved from there to discussing the “myths” of history, including that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves out of moral principle. He only did it because it deprived the South of slave labor, you know. Liberals have to tell themselves that because how else to explain a Republican doing the right thing?
