the 4th of july?

guess what you guys... Its tomorrow..:mickey:

 

Now you’ve met another. I do care! The number of others who also care should not be underestimated.

Agreed!!

All Americans are such and remain so as a matter choice – we are all free to leave as we please (those currently incarcerated excepted).

The right to express disagreement with government is the result of men willing to die for principals they believed in – many did die, as many have since, for those principles.

Independence Day is a celebration and commemoration of our independence from Great Britain. It is the day we declared that independence – we still had to fight a war before it was realized. It is neither a day for celebrating the horrors of, nor for glorifying, any war.

It is appropriate that Independence Day also be a time of remembering and honoring those who died in service of their country. Regardless of one’s beliefs, respect for those who made the ultimate sacrifice should not be denied.

And, the Fourth of July should be a day of expressing appreciation for our men and women in uniform. Performing a most times thankless task and having sworn to defend us against all enemies – they do their duty without the option of personal decision in regard to who or what that enemy might be or how and when it will be engaged.

Sadly, many have forgotten or never cared that many have died, and are still willing to die, for the rights we enjoy daily.

 

this is my favorite holiday but i dont think it deserves the meaning. this country is so fucked up. and americans made it that way. still we "celebrate" how "wonderful" it is

i dont get into all that. i just get drunk and have a good time

 

RIGHT ON!atriot:

 

I rage on a daily basis about the state of the UK, but I agree with drumminmama, this doesn't stop me loving the land itself.

Sometimes, when I read posts on here I'm quite envious of the vastness of America, so many wonderful places to see. That is worth a celebration.

 

I agree with you. For all its faults, and it has lots and lots of them, America is a magnificent land. One could without much effort at all spend a lifetime exploring it. There are great contrasts, for sure. There is pride and prejudice, but there is also generosity and compassion. There is truth and goodness to go alongside the many terrible examples of the lowest that human beings can go. But that's true of any country. America is no better or no worse than any other.

Our biggest fault, in my opinion, is the degree to which we have become politically polarized. Intolerance is unfortunately the manner of the day, on both sides. Neither side of the political spectrum sees any merit in the other, and the ugly rhetoric flies as thick as the air on a sweltering August night.

It is my hope that this too is a passing thing, that eventually we will all calm down and stop blaming all our problems on the government or on the liberals or the conservatives or on this or that.

We'll see

 

No, it's about not being a British colony anymore, and not being ruled by a king (or queen) who has never been elected by anybody. Issues with American Indians have nothing to do with this holiday or anything that happened in Philadelphia in 1776. Don't start a history thread if you don't know anything about it, and aren't willing to look up the basic facts.

Nobody is opposed to American Independence Day anymore. Even the British eventually got over it. In fact, after World War II, they decided that we can be handy to have around at times. I have never heard anyone from the UK say that they would like to have us back as a colony, with no voting rights or autonomy.

Read the Declaration of Independence and tell me what part of it you disagree with. I don't think you can find anything wrong with it. The basic ideas have been copied and used all around the world.
atriot:
Too many people can only see bad things when they look around. For those who say everything about America is bad, what did the Grand Canyon ever do to piss you off? What about Yosemite and the Rocky Mountains?

Do you dislike freedom of speech too? And all American authors and composers and artists?

If you find a completely perfect place to live, move there fast, and enjoy it while it lasts, because it won't be perfect for long. Humans will find it.

I hear a lot of talk about other countries being so much better than the US, but I don't see people getting off their asses and making any effort to move to any of those places. So I don't believe a word of it. Talk is cheap. Some people will do almost anything to move here, and millions have done it. Action, I can believe.


Also, did I mention that we have alcohol and weed?

 

Indeed !!!


atriot:

 

I think this "Dazed and Confused" quote would be appropriate:

"Don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."

Nah, the principle of the whole 4th July thing is alright. A pity all that patriotism has been hijacked by the right so they can restrict more freedoms. In the name of freedom.

There is nothing wrong with America. It's the Americans that are the problem.

Peace and Love eace:

 

I think you're quite right.

Oh, but this is just more of the "love it or leave it" mentality of Richard Nixon's political right. It was flawed logic then, and it's flawed logic now.

 

Absolutely not. His spin on it was something more like, "If you can't find a better country to live in, then you should go along with everything I say, and everything the Republican Party says, because we get results." Nice try, but no cigar for Nixon. No one political party deserves all the credit for everything that is good here. Especially not that party.
uke:

The lack of better alternatives to the USA is not an excuse to stop trying to make things better here. In fact, it's a reason to work even harder, because it's not very feasible to go elsewhere and start over. Our best shot is right here, and we had better find a way to make it work.

 

That's a very good point. If not for federal laws and enforcement, the states in the deep South, for example, would still be forcing black people to the back of the societal bus.

 

The one thing you gotta like about North America-is that we have the freedom to say what we want, just like we all are doing without having a knock on our door at night and disappear.

and remember, Neither States Nor Provinces nor the Federal governments do anything, we the people do.

If we don't like it, we can become it.