Whoa.  The title of this blog piece will offend a lot of good people; maybe you’re one of them.  Here’s why I say that the Fourth of July means nothing to me.  It has to do with the difference between America and Amerika.

The Fourth of July is a celebration of America – “the land of the free.”  In America, people could live their lives without ever thinking about government because it had such a small role.  Free from ridiculous government intervention, people started businesses or worked at good jobs, raised their families, owned modest but comfortable houses, put their kids through college, lived in a decent and moderately religious society, and could feel proud that they lived in the greatest country God ever created.  Seriously.  The greatest.  I know this because I used to live in America and saw the goodness of America with my own eyes.

But America is no more.  I won’t list off all the reasons.  But you know – deep, deep in your heart – that America doesn’t exist anymore.  You hate to admit, but it’s gone.  Gone.  The sooner you come to that realization, the better off the transition will be in your mind to what is coming next.

What replaced America?  Amerika.  Much like the difference between the two spellings, on the surface Amerika pretty much looks like America.  We still have malls and professional sports teams and all that.  But when you look past the surface, there are enormous differences.

Amerika is about “free” stuff from the government.  Health care and welfare and mortgage assistance and … the list goes on.  Amerika is about how people can get the government to force other people to pay for their stuff.  In the process, Amerika has become materialistic and shallow.  Amerika is also about a staggering loss of civil liberties.  Amerika kind of looks like a capitalist economy, but it’s actually a liberal corporate elite making huge sums of money from foreign workers while people here can’t find decent jobs.  That’s Amerika.

I hate Amerika.

When I see people waving flags on the Fourth of July, it looks like a celebration of Amerika to me.  Now, you might be waving the flag and celebrating America.  If so, I have tons of respect for you because you’re keeping the dream alive about America, and we’ll need people like you to remember America to give us a template for when we rebuild Amerika after the Collapse.

I look at flag waving on the Fourth and – with great remorse and sadness – see Amerika.  The country currently represented by that flag is Amerika, not America.  There is nothing to celebrate about Amerika.  In fact, seeing that flag reminds me how much we’ve lost.

As readers of the 299 Days book series know, I pretty much chronicle what happens in each of the 299 days of the upcoming Collapse.  The entry for July fourth is just another day in the lives of the people in the books; they do not wave the star and stripes.  In fact, most of the people in the books reflect on July fourth about how America turned into Amerika and they’re deeply saddened.

That’s how I feel and why the Fourth of July means nothing to me.

I miss America.