What are your plans for the 4th?
It’s the question on everybody’s mind as we head into the holiday weekend. And I’m here to complain about the syntax. (I am very fun.)
Calling Independence Day “4th of July” is a bit like calling Christmas “25th of December.” It’s not wrong, but it’s not at all descriptive beyond a number on a calendar. When you hear “4th of July,” you think of a bald eagle wearing jorts, drinking Bud Light while setting off illegal fireworks. Hear “Independence Day,” and you think of, well, independence.
The fourth day of the seventh month just so happens to be the day that the Founders decided to tell King George that we would no longer be governed by a detached and out-of-touch ruling class.
The revolutionaries wanted the freedom to run their own country, and implicit within that is the freedom to run their own lives. Maybe I’ve overdosed on listening to the Hamilton soundtrack (just kidding, that’s impossible, it’s a masterpiece), but I’ve been thinking: How many people are really independent today?
Some of the dependence we feel is a direct result of public policy: Obamacare requires that young people be permitted to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until they reach the age of 26. Increased government funding of schools caused tuition and fees to skyrocket, meaning you’ll be paying off those student loans for longer.
I do not mean to conflate freedom from the British monarchy with the freedom of living on your own as an adult. Those are two distinctly separate types of independence, each with their own requirements and ramifications. The point is that all types of independence are deeply meaningful on an individual level.
With our freedom, we choose to depend on one another. Your boss expects you to show up and do your work. In turn, you expect a paycheck from your employer. You count on your friends, and they count on you, too. The difference is that these dependencies are mutually beneficial. Each party gains something from it.
Young people crave independence — we’re mammals, it’s biological. But many of us can’t quite get there yet. If you’re between the ages of 18 and 34, there’s a 32 percent chance that you’re still living with your parents. The economy is still sluggish enough that 21 percent of Americans — more than one in every five of us — depends on some form of government welfare each month. These are forms of dependence that nobody wants, but that have become necessary, in large part due to government interference in the marketplace.
This brings us to the idea of throwing off an unaccountable ruling class. Since the creation of our government, the average tenure of a senator or congressman has been on the overall increase. The average senator has been there for 9.7 years, the average congressman, for 8.8. A landmark 2014 Princeton study of 1,779 political issues found pitifully little impact of public opinion on what actually gets decided in government.
240 years later, America has grown another class of people who are totally detached from those of us they were elected to represent.
In a remarkably pessimistic election season, there is one thing we can hope for: That no matter what happens in November, the coming years see increased opportunity for Americans — particularly young Americans — to become economically independent.
Happy Independence Day.
