The Fireworks of Selfishness: When Your Right to Enjoy Something Inflicts Harm on Others, it is No Longer a Personal Choice

It was in the late afternoon of July 4, a few hours before the sky exploded, when I saw a neighbor’s dog running loose. I recognize her from living a few doors down and she is often in her fenced backyard but with the random explosions that rattled the otherwise quiet of the day, she got loose, which sometimes happens. Just as I was going to try to help, I saw their next door neighbor, also familiar with the dog, was on the front steps, ringing the household’s doorbell to let them know she was loose. The dog was familiar with her and stayed by her side so I felt she was in good hands.

I’ve seen a lot of scared dogs for the past few days, not to mention stressed rabbits, cats darting between cars, disoriented birds flying every which way. I knew we were in for a night on July 4 because all weekend and Monday, was a very loud test run. Also, because this is par for the course.

As firecrackers exploded on July 3, I was out to take a look at the full moon but the sky was too cloudy and smoggy to see anything. I did see a few people walking their panting dogs, though, the dogs pulling on the ends of their leashes or being pulled along with stiff legs, staying low to the ground, jumpy, eyes wide. One man told me that he didn’t want to take his dog out but he had to go to the bathroom and he’d been holding it in all day. He said he put down pee pads for him but the dog wouldn’t go. As he said that, another series of loud, staccato pops went off in a nearby alley and his dog hunched down and yanked to the end of his leash, anxious to get anywhere. The smell of sulfur and smoke hung heavy in the air. Bright red and blue fireworks shot up and rained down at intervals in various directions. The unspoken was that it was only going to be worse the next day.

I was taking a little break from my own dog, who was panting in her makeshift crate – our closet – unwilling to eat or go outside except during daylight and even then, she was nervous. She’s only two but already seems familiar with and resigned to the annual sensory assault. The happy, confident dog I knew was replaced with a very stressed out look-alike. The cats hid under the bed. I didn’t see them for days.

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I know I sound sanctimonious but didn’t we learn in kindergarten that just because we may personally enjoy something, that is not justification enough to do that thing? Like I may have wanted very much to have all the classroom’s toys, and it may have felt fabulous to have them to myself, but sometimes we have to suppress our wants for the greater good. This isn’t that advanced a concept. In order to build a more inclusive, kinder future, sometimes we have to not do the things that bring us fleeting enjoyments if someone else pays the price for it.

According to some sources, July 4 is the biggest day of the year when companion animals go missing. It’s not just our dogs and cats whose lives are put at risk due to stress and disorientation from fireworks but all wildlife, especially birds. Fireworks also worsen the mental health of many people with PTSD, including the war veterans you’d think so many who claim that they like to shoot off explosives as a form of patriotism, would care about. Nearly 20,000 fires caused by fireworks were reported in 2018, according to the National Fire Protection Association. The National Park Service reports that nearly 85 percent of wildland fires in the United States are caused by people. Should we really be lighting fireworks when so many parts of the country are experiencing drought due to climate change?

A number of commenters on our social media essentially said that none of this matters simply because they like to shoot off or watch firework spectacles. It is their right to do as they please. You’d think that asking people to consider others is a massive personal sacrifice by the reaction to simply pointing out the objective harms of fireworks. This kind of pushback and defensiveness when people are asked to weigh fleeting enjoyments over personal, demonstrable harm is very familiar to vegans. We are the enemies of fun, after all. Is it really fun, though, if it terrorizes and endangers so many others? Is the fun justifiable? If an arsonist truly enjoys setting things on fire, who are we to try to stop them? A bunch of buzzkills and Karens.​​

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Speaking of setting things ablaze, July 4 on my block was capped off with firefighters putting out a fire in the alley a block away. There was a firetruck, ambulances, hoses attached to hydrants, a gurney I didn’t hang around to see get filled or remain empty, and a giant plume of charcoal smoke billowing up in the night sky as more fireworks popped off around us and rained down from all around. There were people lighting off firecrackers in the alley for hours beforehand. A garage burned down, thankfully, not a home. The firefighters were able to stop it before it spread. The next day, a man sweeping up debris in the alley said it was his neighbor’s garage, a retired couple who have lived there for at least 30 years.

Who’s fun is this? Whose rights are being trampled upon here? 
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