The liberal New York Times is urging Americans to give up Fourth of July fireworks celebrations in the name of stopping climate change.
In a recent op-ed, titled, “Enough With the Fireworks Already,” the killjoys at the Times insisted Americans find a different way to celebrate their nation’s independence.
The article argues Americans should give up fireworks because dogs and wildlife are terrified of loud booms — definitely not because the NYT hates America or anything.
And those were all companion animals, the ones whose terror is clear to us. We have no real way of knowing how many wild animals suffer because the patterns of their lives are disrupted with no warning every year on a night in early July. People shooting bottle rockets in the backyard might not see the sleeping songbirds, startled from their safe roosts, exploding into a darkness they did not evolve to navigate — crashing into buildings or depleting crucial energy reserves. People firing Roman candles into the sky above the ocean may have no idea that the explosions can cause seabirds to abandon their nest or frighten nesting shorebirds to death.
The NYT also says fireworks should be banned because they’re toxic to the environment and could cause fires, before going on to claim Americans are also scared of loud booms because of recent mass shootings.
Animals aren’t the only ones that suffer on the Fourth of July. We live in a country completely saturated with guns, and far too many of them are fired at strangers at public events. These days many human beings have a similar panicked reaction to the sound of fireworks, mistaking it for gunfire.
The article next launches into a climate change rant lecturing Americans that, in addition to giving up fireworks, they need to “eat more vegetables and less animal protein,” and “raise the thermostat in the summer and lower it in the winter.”
“In that context, surely, we can give up fireworks. Of all the little pleasures that give life meaning and joy, surely fireworks don’t come close to the top of the list, and it costs us nothing to give them up,” the NYT writes, claiming that doing so would be “the right thing.”
The op-ed complains about a “conflation of selfishness with patriotism,” before going on to suggest Americans who eat hamburgers, drive big trucks and “fire bottle rockets deep into the night on the Fourth of July” aren’t “good Americans.”
While the Times views July 4th celebrations as an unnecessary novelty that can be dispensed with at a whim, the celebratory explosions are actually deeply engrained in American history with fireworks popped at the very first Independence Day celebration.
According to History.com:
The tradition of setting off fireworks on the 4 of July began in Philadelphia on July 4, 1777, during the first organized celebration of Independence Day. Ship’s cannon fired a 13-gun salute in honor of the 13 colonies. The Pennsylvania Evening Post reported: “at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) on the Commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated.” That same night, the Sons of Liberty set off fireworks over Boston Common.
The American Pyrotechnics Association reports America’s second president, Founding Father and Declaration of Independence signer John Adams, once proclaimed the Fourth of July “ought to be solemnized with pomp, parade, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other.”
Given the historical significance of fireworks in American culture, it appears the Times is attempting to undermine another institutional US tradition with UN propaganda masquerading as an op-ed.
The anti-firework piece comes as an op-ed published by the Times on Tuesday also argued for more government regulation of free speech, claiming “The First Amendment Is Out of Control.”
