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July 04, 2007

Happy Birthday to the greatest nation on Earth

The great American experiment continues and I'll make this brief.

There is no place on Earth I'd rather live, no other system of government that, for all its flaws, I'd rather participate in.

For some, American patriotism is evil, without any glimmer of recognition of the irony of their own success in the society they wish to see destroyed. Most Americans, happily and rationally, reject such hate and rather subscribe to the moral truism "Patriotism is the most practical of all human characteristics."

Others are studiously ignorant of the moral basis of the American experiment. They continue to aggitate from a classically Marxist position ... that everything is determined by economics and all other values are subservient to economic "equality" ... even liberty.

It's the "I have a right to a pony" fantasy. Fantasy because the unspoken part of the sentence is "even if I have to enslave the guy down the street to secure that right". It hasn't worked in the past but hey, let's keep trying because I certainly don't want to have to really earn that pony.

And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. ~~John F. Kennedy
JFK certainly wasn't talking about ponies!

For more positive writings on the 4th and what we truly honor today, take a moment to check out the various writings from The Cotillion, Captain Ed, Jay Tea at Wizband, Jeff Harrell, and Eric at Classical Values.

I'll post more links as I come across them.

In closing, before I head off to be with my family for a day that celebrates both the micro and the macro of American culture and values, let me do a little shameless quoting from what I wrote last year.

We are not aware of all the details of the lives of the 56 signers of Declaration of Independence. Some may have been prone to tippling, or bursts of anger. Some may have cheated a neighbor or broken their vows to their spouse. Some may have been prone to violence, brawling in a public house or raising their hand to their children. But in that one moment, that one fleeting instance when they risked all they did have for an ideal, they put their moral bank account in the black. They exceeded the vagaries of themselves and their neighbors and passed on to us, their ideological descendents, a priceless gift.

May we all strive to be worthy of them.

Happy 4th of July and our good wishes and prayers for the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

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Posted by Darleen at July 4, 2007 08:35 AM

Comments

Darleen

"But in that one moment, that one fleeting instance when they risked all they did have for an ideal, they put their moral bank account in the black."

Regardless of their failings personally, you are right, they came together at that moment, at that place in our history, and risked it all for us.

Their failure meant certain death by hanging.

We have those men among us today but few are those who herald and praise them.

Posted by: HughS at July 4, 2007 06:01 PM

Dr Johnson was more right than wrong, when he called patriotism the last refuge of scoundrels. Yes, patriotism can be enobling thing, but nowadays it is used as little more than a cheap partisan tool.

For example you often see this kind of argument:

"You don't support my foreign policy?" the president and his partisans yell. "Well then, you must be unpatriotic."

[They love this kind of argument on the Fox Nonsense Channel.]

Same sort of thing I heard during the Vietnam War. If you didn't support the Vietnam war you were somehow unpatriotic.

Posted by: Carl W. Goss at July 5, 2007 09:29 AM

Sometimes I feel we're just not tough enough on crime. Who's with me?

Posted by: Swan at July 6, 2007 05:57 AM

"You don't support my foreign policy?" the president and his partisans yell. "Well then, you must be unpatriotic."

Why is it that the only people I ever hear saying that are on the left? It's very much the same as the notion that the administration claimed Saddam was behind 9/11. I never hear that from the right, and we've never heard it from the administration. Yet, it's all over the left, chanted like a mantra.

Posted by: Pablo at July 7, 2007 10:22 AM

Pablo,

There's this neat new thing called Google. You should acquaint yourself with it.

http://www.google.com/search?q=question+their+patriotism

Posted by: Josh at July 9, 2007 08:51 PM

Josh, there's this neat little thing called reading comprehension. You should familiarize yourself with it. If you want to link, why don't you link to something that reflects the statement I quoted, and not things like moonbats claiming "We support the troops...when they frag their officers." or “Perhaps the most disturbing scene of the afternoon, however, involved the man who pulled down his pants in front of women and children and defecated on a burning U.S. flag.”

There is no question about their patriotism; they have none. But that's a different thing than the twaddle Carl rolled out above. If you're going to open your yap, try to address the topic at hand.

Posted by: Pablo at July 14, 2007 07:54 AM