Happy birthday 'Merica!
To celebrate, how about we all learn a bit about our country's history. There's a bit more to celebrating freedom than shooting off some fireworks - which is fun and awesome, no doubt, but hardly the real point of the holiday.
The Fourth of July should be a reminder that the freedoms we all enjoy require us to continue to fight for them daily. Independence wasn't the conclusion of the grand experiment, it was the beginning.
The great ideals set forth over 200 years ago by a bunch of guys in wigs are ideals that today are far from set in stone. Our freedoms need to be tended and guarded, protected from erosion.
The ideals of our country form a solid foundation, but the firmest of foundations first begins to crumble with the tiniest of cracks. And just as a homeowner who ignores the settling of earth under and around his home's foundation or the seeping of water into the solid base below him invites disaster, so do we if we fail to continually inspect and maintain our ideals.
So today, as the hot dogs roast on grill, the beer chills in the cooler and the fireworks fly forth in flashing bursts, stop and think about the things that make this country great and ask yourself whether they worth preserving. And if they are, ask yourself what you've done lately to ensure their preservation.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Fourth of July
Posted by Shawn at 1:46 PM
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7 comments:
"There's a bit more to celebrating freedom than shooting off some fireworks"
There is? Well, maybe there is, but all that history stuff is just too complicated. I'd rather blow up some ants, cram a couple hot dogs and few beers down my cake hole and rally around ammendments about the desecration of our flag, even though I'm not sure why we pledge alligience to it anymore. But that takes thinkin, and I'm to drunk to do that.
Are your sure you don't live down the street from me, Laura? ;)
My neighborhood is FULL of idiots who don't have a pot to piss in, but have plenty of money for booze and illegal fireworks!! I'm POSITIVE that NONE of them knows why July 4rh is a holiday.
How did this holiday degenerate into such a drunken free-for-all?!
I'm not sure that it's really anything new...
When I was living in California, I had the distinction of living in a fine little community called - I kid you not - Rough and Ready. This little burg has a spot in history as a town that suceeded from the Union...until they realized that there was a bunch of partying going on up the dusty trail in Grass Valley on the Fourth of July. They didn't want to miss out on that action, so they quickly un-suceeded.
No joke, Google away on that one.
That's a neat little bit of history, Shawn. Thanks.
It certainly serves to prove just how whacked out Nevada County, California is.
Well put Shawn.
Every 4th I give a reading of the Declaration and the Constitution.
Two documents that were so radical in their day that even there writer's thought they had less than 50-50 odds of making it actually work. The real struggle for building America took place from 1783-1812.
Suddenly my county seems sane!
A belated happy fourth.
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