This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, July 4th, 2019.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Independence Day is about celebrating independence from an oppressive government.

In Washington, D.C. this year that celebration will feature military

patentry not seen at previous celebrations.

It's a troubling turn, and it's one that was inspired by the displays of military hardware in a particularly unsavory regime.

Cato's Chris Preble comments.

The 4th of July in Washington, D.C. is a fun day. If you live around here it can be a very fun day. It's very

crowded on the national mall. There's a lot of flag waving. There's a lot of sort of patriotic songs and there's a lot of

leading into the history, at least especially the early history of the United

States, but there's one thing that hasn't been a big part of that celebration and that is the sort of military

pageant that we more associate with countries like the Soviet Union and North Korea.

And in fact, the president in announcing that he wanted to do big military pageantry in the United States in Washington DC on the 4th of July

pointed directly to the military displays of North Korea as inspiration.

Yes.

He does not seem particularly concerned that this is not the way we've done it traditionally.

We could say that about much of his president.

Look, I mean, there's a fair amount of military sort of representation

at the 4th of July ceremonies, you know, the Brain Corps band and things like that, you know, it's sponsored by the various defense contractors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc, etc. So there's some of that. Of course, you could argue that Boeing and Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc. So there's some of that.

Of course, you could argue that Boeing and Lockheed Martin's

sponsored the Washington, D.C.

every single day based on the ads in the metro.

...