So, we got over the 4th of July without any bigger harm – or did we?

Watching all the happiness of the parade down main street and then the fireworks in the evening and smelling all the BBQs going full blast I could not help remembering the movie The Matrix.

Neo: The Matrix?

Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
(Neo nods his head.)

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.
(In his left hand, Morpheus shows a blue pill.)

Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
(In his right hand, Morpheus shows a red pill.)

Morpheus: You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
(Long pause; Neo begins to reach for the red pill)
Remember — all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.

There, did you see – Neo reaches for the red pill. And that’s were all the events of the 4th of July were different. In each parade there was a free helping of blue pills. In each burger flipped there was a blue pill right there in the center. So that they all could wake up in their bed and believe whatever they wanted to believe.

Somehow I must have gotten a little dose of that nasty red pill. Otherwise I would not have noticed the following. The parade down main street. All happy people on both sides in lawn chairs cheering and waving to all the paraders. Not that many, it’s a small town and most of them were probably out taking advantage of the 4th of July sales at the local Target.

But the few paraders had a lot of fun. When can you go up and down the main street on your bike showing off that you can do some cool wheely. Up and down and then once more with lots of cheers.

How long?

Until a cop car rolls slowly down the street and ordering them to stop over their authority-inducing speaker system – you know Darth Vader like – you can’t really understand what they say, but you certainly know there is something that is not approved of and you better stop whatever that may be.

The tragic is that all these cheerers did not see anything wrong with that! But I can’t help noticing that that cop just misused his power – he has no right whatsoever to tell any parader what to do as long as he is not endangering anybody but himself – and none of them did – big street!

I wonder – there was also an antique fire tank truck parading down the street, stopping ever so often and spraying water onto the appreciative viewers (it was a rather hot day after all) – were there dissolved blue pills in the water?

What, you don’t really see what’s my point? Here is one – the US celebrated the independence from King George of Britain. Much of the disagreement with the homeland was over the steep taxes George raised and the great number of officers that were around to implement British government. The taxes people went to war over were in the range of 2 to 3 percent – how much do you see of your paycheck today after all taxes and other gifts to the government are deducted? And today there are – what- about one million people working for the federal government alone – I believe there weren’t that many immigrants in America when these immigrant said – ENOUGH!