Happy Independence Day!
 

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

The only "ism" that matters is Darwinism
 

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.

O' SAY CAN YOU SEE!!!
 

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.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...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 Everyone!
 

Happy 4th of July! :lifter

America has faced worse and will endure this storm.

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

Happy 4th brothers. Can't wait to get the smoker going. Texas style ribs and brisket. ;)

Happy July the 4th!!!
 

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)

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

Another 4th of July Celebration
 

Thanks Richard for the post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgLUm...ure=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.

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!

Have a happy and safe one this year.