Nonetheless, I just know if I dwell on the many grievances of life, I will hold myself back. I do not need to be the global paragon of wealth and success in order to know that.

Somewhere along the way, the day of celebrating freedom — Juneteenth — turned into a black nationalist holiday. And not just black nationalist, but a certain flavor of black nationalism, with a disempowerment to it.

Somewhere along the way, the day which could be a celebration of American society over slavery, and a triumph of Western culture over slavery, a triumph of Christianity, even, over slavery — somehow all gave way to divisiveness.

See For Yourself

A few minutes spent at the local Juneteenth events is easy enough to see it as a day of seething anger.

It fits perfectly in between those two other holidays of seething anger — Flag Day and Father's Day, forming a June triumvirate of seething anger before the month gives way to July and Independence Day — another day of seething anger.

That isn't true at all. Seething anger is just not the American way. One of those holidays does not belong in the American panoply of holidays.

Practices That Are Not Cathartic, But Which Cause More Suffering

Rage is not cathartic. It fuels more rage. Grievance is not cathartic. It fuels more grievance.

As someone who knows many countries well and who recognizes the treasure that America is, I do not want the balkanization of this land. I want unity in this land. United we stand, divided we fall remains a worthy aspiration. Some level of unity and homogeneity of culture is needed.

The addition of a grievance holiday to the calendar does not do that, but the opposite. It uses decent people and manipulates them for the benefit of those who wish to see the destruction of the best country on the planet.

Useful Innocents

No matter how well-intentioned a person is, at some point he becomes a useful innocent (as Mises called it) or useful idiot (as Lenin called it). Eventually that useful innocent becomes not a useful innocent, but a negligent nuisance, and eventually a social pariah.

At some point, those who repeatedly play ally to the professional grievance grifters become pariahs. At some point, the broken record of grievances becomes toxic — toxic to a people, toxic to a land, toxic to a nation.