Friday celebrates the birthday of the land of the free and the home of the brave.
If Paul Revere were to make his ride today, he’d likely be yelling that the government was coming, coming to take away your apple pie, fireworks and other July fun.
Environmentalists have already used ligation to attempt to halt municipal fireworks displays, alleging that shows which happen over or near federally protected waters violate the Clean Water Act. As though state laws prohibiting impressive personal pyrotechnic displays weren’t enough, a proposed expansion of the definition of “waters of the United States” could allow the EPA to regulate bodies of water on privately owned property, threatening private displays of patriotism as well.
Their new definition sees the waters not only as traditional navigable waters such as rivers and canals, but also “interstate wetlands,” “impoundments of traditional navigable waters…and adjacent waters, including adjacent wetlands.” If there are any waters left outside of this list, it adds that additional bodies of water may also be regulated if they have a “significant nexus” to a traditionally navigable waterway.
Essentially, if the body of water allows you to see the reflection of a rocket bursting in air, the EPA can make regulations about it and environmental groups can sue you for potentially polluting them.
And while you are sitting there forlornly not watching your fireworks, the Obama administration would like you to forgo the pie for “a patriotic and healthy-licious red, white and blue fruit salad.” No ice cream, no pie, no lemonade, just ice cold water with “thinly sliced lemons, limes, watermelon or strawberries.” As American as fruit salad? I don’t think so.
A Fourth of July without fireworks is practically un-American. Shouldn’t we take the advice of John Adams instead? Adams wrote that the Fourth should “be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
