View Full Version : Happy Independence Day!
neecheepure
07-04-2010, 08:43
Let's pause and reflect on the state of our great nation, and see if we can see the ideals set forth 234 years ago reflected in the face of the over-weight welfare recipient gambling away his (or her) federally extended "entitlement" check at the local casino...
I shed a bitter tear... :(
:eek::mad::munchin
Cool Breeze
07-04-2010, 08:50
Social welfare programs end up being exactly what you said. Intead of a "helping hand" to get a person back on their feet, the programs become an "entitlement".
Giuliani got it right when he was mayor of NYC. Not welfare, but workfare. When we give away these benefits, and families go through 2 or more generations, it becomes an entitlement, with no incentive to better themselves through college or hard work.
Don't know what the solution is but I am with you. Not happy about where the country is headed.
Happy 4th brothers.
Let's pause and reflect on the state of our great nation, and see if we can see the ideals set forth 234 years ago reflected in the face of the over-weight welfare recipient gambling away his (or her) federally extended "entitlement" check at the local casino...
Nope. All I see is sweat and cookie crumbs. I also see a vision of the new America, where the administration encourages overweight welfare recipients to gamble away their federally provided income as a means of paying back trillions of dollars in national debt. Oh and America has gone green, every citizen has been issued paper from the healthcare reform to use as fuel for new energy effecient fireplaces. :eek:
And through all of that stuff I'd still be proud to be an American. Happy Idependence day America. Be safe don't drink and drive.
incarcerated
07-04-2010, 10:50
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703571704575341442497326842.html?m od=googlenews_wsj
Independence Day in Siberia
From a former Soviet Army truck driver, I learned the blessings of being an American.
JULY 3, 2010
By HILARY KRIEGER
My "there but for the grace of God" moment came on March 30, 2005. On that day, I found myself in the musty, bare apartment of 75-year-old Josef Katz, a former Soviet army truck driver who lived in the industrial wasteland of Achinsk, Siberia.
I had come to learn about the Jewish aid organization that provided him basic necessities each week, but what touched me most wasn't his present poverty. It was the story he told me about his past, of the steps that carried him to a cramped and crumbling apartment with a vista limited to the concrete courtyard separating his warehouse of a building from the others just like it—and how it could have been my own family's.
Like the many political prisoners who made Siberia synonymous with exile, Katz was born elsewhere. In his case, it was Ukraine, where he lived in a small town until World War II. Then, in 1944, he was packed onto a train, sent to a concentration camp and separated from his family. He managed to hang on until the next year when, at the age of 15, he was liberated by American soldiers.
Being just a boy, when the GIs—"angels" he called them—offered to take him to the United States, he thought only of finding his parents. So he turned down the soldiers' offer. Half-starved and penniless, Katz could barely walk. Yet he made it back home, where he discovered that he alone from his family had survived.
There was a neighbor who recognized him and took him in. She spent a year nursing him back to health, and he in turn spent two years after that working to repay her. By then he was old enough to realize what he had lost by not going to America. But it was too late. He entered his mandatory military service in the Soviet army and was sent to a base in Siberia.
After his release Katz found work as a driver in Achinsk, where the grayness of the buildings, streets and perpetual slush penetrates the bones more deeply than the chill. It was in Achinsk that he, as he put it, "lived, worked and grew old."
Katz's decision was long made by the time I met him in his apartment five years ago. But that didn't mean the wound of a life that might have been wasn't fresh. When I asked him whether he regretted his choice, tears welled up.
"It was the biggest mistake I ever made," he answered. "Many times I was crying in my heart that I missed that chance."
My eyes weren't dry, either. But I can't claim it was solely compassion that moved me. It was also deep gratitude.
My own family lived in parts of Eastern Europe that later came under Soviet control. And they, too, were buffeted by historic forces of tragedy and opportunity.
The discrimination and hardship visited on Jews in the Czarist army caused my great-grandfather's parents to have him smuggled out of Russia at the age of 14 before he could be conscripted. Against a backdrop of anti-Jewish pogroms, the prospect of building a better life convinced my great-great-grandmother to sell her home so that she, her husband and their 10 children could join the huddled masses reaching the New York shore in 1895.
Had they wavered, they and their offspring would also have grown up to face the ravages of World War II and—had any survived—a life of stifled hopes under Soviet Communism.
As their descendant, I would not have had the superlative public education where even as a student journalist I was able to test the bounds of free speech. I would not have gained the entrée and financial aid at Cornell, one of the country's finest universities, that opened the door to the career of my choice. I would not have been able to worship freely as a Jew, to recite the Passover declaration loudly and publicly that "on this festival of freedom we pray that liberty will come to all."
On Independence Day, I am acutely aware of the remarkable gifts I have been given because of decisions my forebears made, risks they took because of their conviction that America would receive and favor them. Because they were able to seize opportunity rather than let it slip away.
In a godforsaken apartment in Achinsk, I understood the blessings of being an American.
Ms. Krieger is the Washington bureau chief of the Jerusalem Post.
Happy 4th of July! :lifter
America has faced worse and will endure this storm.
Let's pause and reflect on the state of our great nation, and see if we can see the ideals set forth 234 years ago reflected in the face of the over-weight welfare recipient gambling away his (or her) federally extended "entitlement" check at the local casino...
I shed a bitter tear... :(
:eek::mad::munchin
Neecheepure,
I know this should not be funny. It's a serious day and holiday and I take my family's independence very seriously. BUT, thank God we have QPs with a sense of humor to lighten our load on what is going on in this country.
God Bless America!
o5
You guys have a great one! :lifter
Shadow1911
06-30-2011, 07:40
Happy 4th brothers. Can't wait to get the smoker going. Texas style ribs and brisket. ;)
frostfire
07-01-2011, 23:42
Happy Independence Day!
Here's to the nation I have grown to love, the Constitution I am sworn to support and defend, and the US Army who's adopted me as citizen. By God's grace I am where I am today. There's much sorrow over the past 10 years decline, but there's greater gratitude still
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1sy8e7I0vc
(sorry for the crappy laptop mic :boohoo)
incarcerated
07-01-2011, 23:52
Wishing all a great day.
Hope to see many of you at the ribbon cutting for the Veterans Memorial Park in Fayetteville. Happy Independence Day!
The reality of America has come a long ways in the past several hundred years, its citizens facing unimagined challenges and reaping tremendous rewards. I know many who seek to live in some mythical American past which never was and many others who are fearful of living in the reality of an America yet to be. Personally, I remain optimistic that this nation will continue to find the citizenry and collective will to do the right thing, to continue to press forward to achieve those inspirational ideals expressed so clearly in our Declaration of Independence, and to continue the support for anyone seeking to live as free men and women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kdOKJXfTU4
To the celebration of the American ideal!
De Oppresso Liber.
Richard
Thanks Richard for the post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgLUmiRLqW8&feature=relatedher link
FDR showed tremendous affection towards our military veterans at the 75th Anniversary parade of our Gettyburg, Civil War veterans.
Not thinking it would be expressed in like manner today from the left.
Very moving, you might find you have dust or something else in your eye.
------BT-----
Happy Independence Day brothers, friends, sisters.
I love you all.
ZonieDiver
07-02-2011, 10:22
The reality of America has come a long ways in the past several hundred years, its citizens facing unimagined challenges and reaping tremendous rewards. I know many who seek to live in some mythical American past which never was and many others who are fearful of living in the reality of an America yet to be. Personally, I remain optimistic that this nation will continue to find the citizenry and collective will to do the right thing, to continue to press forward to achieve those inspirational ideals expressed so clearly in our Declaration of Independence, and to continue the support for anyone seeking to live as free men and women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kdOKJXfTU4
To the celebration of the American ideal!
De Oppresso Liber.
Richard
Very well said, Richard. I, too, am hopeful about our future. Maybe its because we work/worked with young people and saw the goodness in so many of them, despite the negative portrayal they often receive. At any rate, thanks for saying it.
Happy 4th of July to all!
BoyScout
07-02-2011, 10:42
Have a happy and safe one this year.
I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable weekend, surrounded by lots of friends and family,, and good food, and cold beer,, and fun,, and cold beer,, and good friends..
Did I mention cold beer???
:D:D:D:D
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
A toast to our Forefathers, to the men and women who have valiantly fought for our freedoms and to those who stand the line today. And an extra toast to those who've given full measure.
God Bless America, Happy Independence Day to us all!
Utah Bob
07-03-2011, 06:41
I shall relax and bask in the sun. I'll walk up to the top of the canyon and sit on Elk Rock overlooking the fields and mountains in the distance. And I'll know that as far as I can see the land is under no despot's heel.
I will raise the flag and salute. Maybe I'll watch a ball game on TV and have my first beer in 6 months.
I'll honor 56 of the bravest men who ever lived and re-read some of their writings and quotes.
I'll raise a glass to all those who have kept us free over the years and those who continue to stand on guard and sacrifice for us.
Then I'll go to the parade in Dove Creek on Monday and watch a bunch of happy Americans celebrate the best dang holiday ever!
Life is good when you're a free man.
Attached is a link to the bios of the founding fathers, 50 + signers to the DOI.
http://colonialhall.com/biodoi.php
In depth, enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZBTyTWOZCM
Buffalobob
07-03-2011, 15:53
Thanks to Richard and Utah Bob for remembering why we put on the beret and wore it.
Freedom is indeed, not free!
TO ALL who have given, and to some who have given ALL, my humble thanks for your bravery, courage, and sacrifice in service to Our great country.
Independence is the greatest gift we Americans will ever be given.
Holly:)
Ret10Echo
07-03-2011, 19:00
To the brave souls who chose to place their name on a document that flew in the face of an established regime.
To those who chose the hard path of freedom over one of comfortable servitude.
To those today who leave behind family, friends and comfort to do the work of the nation that was born of that document.
Happy Independence Day
incarcerated
07-03-2011, 19:10
http://www.coachisright.com/the-signers-of-the-declaration-of-independence-pledged-their-lives-their-very-lives-for-us/
The signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their very lives for us
By Coach Collins, on July 3rd, 2011
The words at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence are far more familiar than the closing sentence. “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,…” are words we know from schooldays. They are the political poetry of our national founding.
The words we have not heard enough about are those in the closing sentence of this powerful document: “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
“…we mutually pledge to each other our lives…” was a serious statement that begs clarification. What did these men risk if they were captured by the King’s soldiers after having signed their name to this demand for freedom?
The Americans who fell into the hands of the British during the War were not seen as POWs but traitors. To the British they were little more than traitors. When they were captured they were crammed into every available public building and space without regard for health or safety. When such space ran out they were herded into prison ships in New York harbor and fed garbage.
The rotting meat they received was often served raw. When those who could not hold down their “rations” died, their bodies were dumped into the harbor. Severe dysentery typhus small pox and any number of other contagious diseases killed fifteen men a day. On one single ship, the Jersey, an astounding 11,000 men died during the five years it was used as a prison. In all it is estimated that approximately 20,000 men died in British captivity during the height of the Revolution.
By contemporary witness accounts as many as 70% of American Revolutionary War POWs died while held by the British. That was twice the death rate at Andersonville and Korea and way past the 3.6% and 11.3% death rates for American POWs in WW I and WW II respectively.
When our Founding Fathers pledged their lives, they were doing so in the face of savage retaliation torturous treatment and near certain death. This is what “pledging their lives meant to these brave men.
Let us always honor these men and do so especially on the anniversary of the dare they took to give us freedom.
kimberly
07-04-2011, 07:47
From the bottom of my heart, with all the love there is in me, THANK YOU to those who have worn the uniforms of our military with the determination to keep us free. Our military service members.
THANK YOU to those who carry on the fight far past the uniform who are never acknowledged or known to the greater population, but work in solitude to get the job done.
I'm foregoing the celebration today and keeping wait to hear from someone far away, thinking of all those in the trenches who will only celebrate the birthday of our country in their hearts; no fireworks, no parades, but with the knowledge that what they are doing will ensure another birthday for the United States of America.
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.
~Calvin Coolidge
Happy 4th of July my brothers..
Be safe in the box..be safe at home....
incarcerated
07-04-2011, 12:45
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0fQd858cRc&feature=player_embedded
Utah Bob
07-05-2011, 12:35
A great day.
Had my first beer in 6 months!:lifter