I watched a biography on Johnny Cash last night.  A series of frames showed Cash before a large outdoor crowd with his guitar crammed up into his right armpit.  He played with the crowd.

“I thank GOD for all the freedoms we’ve got in this country.  I cherish them.  Even the rights to burn the flag…”

At this point the crowd grows nervous.  There are some loud boo’s, but mostly silence…

“We’ve also got a right to bear arms…  and if you burn MY flag…  I’ll shoot ya!”

The crowd predictably goes bananas.  It was part of his act for a while.

Kris Kristofferson’s young son walked up to Johnny Cash backstage and recited, “I’ll shoot ya,” back to the performer.  Kristofferson said Johnny vowed to never say that again.  “He never did.”

As we prepare to celebrate Independence Day this weekend, I have been thinking about some of the freedoms we have as Americans.  A lot of blood was spilled in order to form our “more perfect union.”  Nowadays the freedoms we enjoy are too often boiled down to soundbites from talking heads on cable news channels or flamed in the blogosphere in the same manner in which Johnny Cash once promised to shoot flag-burners.  Good for ratings, probably not so good for teaching the responsibilities that accompany inalienable rights.

There is a man who lives down the road from me who claims our forefather’s died so that he can post protest limericks about our city government by the roadside.  Really?  They died for that?  Let them lie proudly in their graves.  Don’t so trivialize our American independence.

Declaring and displaying our rights is a favorite American past-time.  Sometimes it is obviously necessary.  But more than our guaranteed rights, I wonder about American responsibility in the age of soundbites.  This July Fourth I hope we examine our responsibilities that accompany our rights as American citizens.  Did Johnny Cash have an opinion?  Did he have the right to free speech?  Did he have a pulpit from which to preach?  Yes, he had all of those things.  He also realized the responsibility that came with his status and his citizenry.

Responsibility rarely makes it onto a cable news broadcast.  It does, however, consistently make appearances in biographies.  Cable news changes every minute.  Biographies hold firm.

Have a great Independence Day.