No Fireworks at Mount Rushmore?

My family likes to go to South Dakota for the Fourth of July because that state’s fireworks laws are, to put it mildly, liberal. In my home town there is a fireworks emporium, a warehouse essentially, where you push a shopping cart between the aisles and, for $150 or so, you can buy a reloadable mortar and a lot of shells that burst overhead, so you can put on a display more or less like what a town might do. In South Dakota as elsewhere, fireworks are a symbol of both freedom and patriotism.

Which is why liberals hate them. Fox News reports that the Biden administration is trying to block any fireworks display at Mount Rushmore next July 4:

The National Park Service (NPS) denied a request from South Dakota for fireworks over Mount Rushmore on the 4th of July this year, after former President Trump’s celebration at the park last Independence Day.

NPS Regional Director Herbert Frost wrote to South Dakota’s tourism office: “Potential risks to the park itself and to the health and safety of employees and visitors associated with the fireworks demonstration continue to be a concern and are still being evaluated as a result of the 2020 event.”

“In addition, the park’s many tribal partners expressly oppose fireworks at the Memorial,” Frost added in the letter, first reported by The Hill.

First, there was nothing about last year’s fireworks display that justifies the NPS’s claims. They are just making that part up. Second, the idea that the “health and safety of employees and visitors” are somehow endangered by fireworks of the sort the state would put on is ludicrous. Yes, you can blow off a finger with a firework (probably an illegal one) if you are unusually careless, but that isn’t what the state has in mind.

The reference to “the park’s many tribal partners” is more revealing. The Biden administration hates displays of patriotism and wants to suppress them. But most Native Americans are, in fact, patriotic. This is a little-known fact in some circles: Indians have historically had above-average rates of military service, and pow-wows generally include a prominent display of the American flag. But the politicized “leaders” of the Indian community are another story. They are the ones to whom the Biden administration turns for support.

Will Independence Day go by without a celebration at Mount Rushmore? Not if South Dakota’s leaders–actual leaders, as opposed to the Slow Joe variety–can help it:

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has promised to fight back. Ian Fury, Noem’s spokesperson, vowed to The Hill the governor “is going to do everything in her ability to ensure that we can celebrate America’s birthday with fireworks at Mount Rushmore.”

My guess is that the people of South Dakota will prevail. But this small conflict provides a window into the anti-Americanism of the radical leftists who run what is laughingly referred to as the “Biden administration.”

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