Making Juneteenth a national holiday really ought not to be controversial or complicated. Unfortunately, our political culture is dominated by a collection of incompetents and imbeciles for which nothing can pass without screw-ups and unnecessary outrage.

Juneteenth—long celebrated in parts of America's black culture on June 19 but increasingly crossing over in the mainstream, as Reason's Zuri Davis detailed—marks the day in 1865 that the Union Army marched into Galveston, Texas, and freed roughly 250,000 slaves. Over the years, it has become a celebration of the snuffing out of chattel slavery within the United States, a moment when the high ideals celebrated on the Fourth of July became more real. It's about freedom. And, as you've probably heard by now, it is America's newest federal holiday thanks to a piece of legislation that President Joe Biden signed earlier this week.

That's wonderful. Happy Juneteenth.

Here's what's not so wonderful. The official designation of a new national holiday just days before it arrives has triggered government officials' most powerful instinct: their desire to get paid for not doing work. With alacrity previously unfathomable, federal bureaucrats have rushed to give themselves a three-day weekend. Most of the federal government is shut down today.