Happy Birthday, America!

“Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.”
Ronald Reagan

Happy Birthday America!

Happy Birthday America!!!

This is a wonderful country; we have our times of trial and travail but through it all we persevere. We've been through tough times before and emerged on the other side stronger then we were before. We are a strong proud people and we have built a great nation and we will continue to do so. Our strength comes not through our military which is second to done; but rather through our everyday people. People just like you and I we fight daily for our freedoms in a myriad of ways. Speaking out and voting are only two ways of continuing that fight.

Yes, we have our issues and I truly believe that together we will solve them. Our greatest strength is our people and our commitment to continue to build our country. So today let us join together in remembering where we came from and fill our hearts with hope for our future. Tomorrow and every other tomorrow let us set our hands to working toward that hopeful future for our children and our children's children.

God Bless America!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God Bless us all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aside from all the craziness going on in the world today...

Happy 231th Birthday to my cousins down south!

Heck of a lotta candles to blow out!

Wishing you all a fun and safe day.






God bless America.



[edit on 4-7-2007 by TheDuckster]

[edit on 4-7-2007 by TheDuckster]

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
In your world, how many wrongs must do combat before the cycle is halted?

I don't think you know much about my world.

The Constitution grants presidents the power to grant pardons and commute sentences.

I asked SO why this case is worse than others.

I don't know how you can derive the things you seem to have derived from a single question.

The Libby case means nothing to me and I'm curious why it means so much to so many.

But, let's not get side tracked.

Thanks for your good wishes.


[edit on 2007/7/4 by GradyPhilpott]

Uhm... Y'all are forgetting something.

I live in America, but I am not in the United States.

Now how could that be??

There is a Copa America tournament going on in Venezuela at the moment, yet the U.S. is just an invitee.

Anyway,

Happy 4th, U.S. citizens! Happy 5th tomorrow, Venezuelans, Happy 14th French people! Happy 20th Colombians!!!

I hope there wasn't any other nation I missed for this month.

[edit on 4-7-2007 by TheBandit795]

[edit on 4-7-2007 by TheBandit795]

today I ignored all partisanship, the bickering, even all the troubles of the world and enjoyed a typical American 4th of July. We supported China with a few hundred dollars worth of fireworks which my guys are currently blowing up outside in the annual firework war between the two ends of my street. We also supported capitalism and big business with our purchases at Walmart, Publix, etc. Oh and lets not forget the legal substance abuse, coolers full of beer and liquor

yeah we completely ignored the crumbling dollar, the never ending war, the social issues, the dying, the sick, the homeless and had an All American 4th of July.

bet you if I went and polled the hundred or so people hanging outside, half couldn't even answer basic American history questions.

we suck as society, but live it up and enjoy it while you can. We might outlive the lie.

Happy Independence Day America.

Booo imperial tyranny!
Yay state-sponsored festival of lights!

I'm with Grady and S.O.

Politicians come and go, and for that (particularly the going) I think we are all occasionally grateful. On a much longer life cycle, larger interests, which are in many cases corrupt and often dominate our politicians, also come and go. The people, however, endure.

This is not merely a day of self-congratulation, of celebration of the past, or of rememberance. This day, like any ritual, is an exercise of an idea that we choose to instruct ourselves in.

This country indeed probably is not what the founding dissidents envisioned. To offer but a pair of brief examples, Washington would be gravely concerned with American foreign policy in the past century and Jefferson with the importance of faith in elections, particularly in recent Republican primaries.

We sometimes seem to agree only academically, without a true understanding, that the men who concieved of such a thing as democratic republic in, and a confederation, and later a federation of the American states, were radicals.

How can we, as modern Americans, comprehend the seeming absurdity of the idea that one government can serve the interests of both New York and South Carolina?
How could we possibly concieve of the seeming certainty that without an aristocracy and state sponsored monopolies, that our society and economy would fall into utter anarchy?
Can we fully understand the stakes of rejecting so much convention?

We take the feasibility of the American way for granted even as some seek to revert us to elements of what our revolution was intended to purge from this country.

That is what makes this holiday important.
For those who take the time to know this country's history, and can comprehend the value of it and the tenuous hold that we have on it, who use this as an occasion to pass on to the next generation not merely an appreciation for fireworks and hotdogs and self congratulation but an esteem for the radical and beautiful ideals of this nation which in every generation are both simultaneously enjoyed and built upon but also threatened and eroded, this holiday is an exercise which will prevent the atrophe of the vital revolutionary spirit which Jefferson so wisely hoped to always preserve.


Yes, happy birthday not to merely to a flag and a set of coordinates and a collection of ochred papers at the national archives, but to the life of the idea in the minds of those who once dreamed (and still dream) of Liberty. Of greater importance still, many more to come.

Dire as things may get, more can come, not only for the flag and the borders and the documents but for the idea, if we continue to teach it and to exercise it. Revolutions, in town halls and college campuses and every other nerve center of the grass roots, at ballot boxes, in the halls of the capital and possibly sometimes in the streets of the capital, will ensure our liberty in every generation to come if we do so.