Unions built America after their military service fighting to preserve it.

A bit more inquiry enhanced the celebration of freedom.   The Fourth of July that we celebrate here exclusively in the United States is about freedom.  What freedoms do we enjoy and why do we celebrate them?

In 1776, the American Colonies declared their freedom from the British with the Declaration of Independence.  The King of England was sent this…

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

The American Revolution was the beginning, not the conclusion.

The Constitution of the United States was put to paper and became an example to the world that democracy can uphold freedom and peace.  Amendments to the constitution added to those freedoms.

The 1st amendment established freedom of religion. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

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The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments abolished slavery, and allowed all men of all colors to vote as citizens born in the US.

The 19th Amendment allowed women of all colors to vote as well.

The 26th Amendment allowed all men and women to vote at the age of 18.  In 1971 Congress decided if men and women had to die for their country they should be allowed to vote.  Prior to 1971 you couldn’t vote until you were 21.

All human beings are free to choose what they value.  Not all countries allow their citizens to follow their own sets of values.  In the US we embrace individual freedoms and values.  We must not let those freedoms decay.

Freedom can not be implied, it must be lived.

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.  You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.

~Erma Bombeck

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We’ll exile ourselves to places like  Costa Rica, Italy, Germany and Norway for the same reasons our forefathers came to America.  Us worker bees will leave the tyrannical hedge fund managers and their big oil buddies to play with their –  own 401k’s.

It might be a good thing — no one left to fight their wars.  Perhaps they’ll stop booting out the illegal aliens;  who may be needed to clean their mansions and perform CPR on their stressed out hearts?

The new members of our 112th congress is an interesting revolt.  I understand you wanted to get rid of the current congress and oust the old white men who have consistently sat on their laurels and performed business as usual.  In my mind shaking things up would have involved voting for young, black, women.  You chose…

Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) opposes gay rights, does not want to honor visitation rights in hospitals for gay couples, does not want gays in the military and wants women to be convicted of murder if they have an abortion and has pushed for other Christian right causes.  She is a Missouri farm wife and schoolteacher who will be appointed to the house armed services committee.

Go to — http://vickyhartzler.com/issues/10/.  She states “the extreme agenda items of the gay movement is a sad chapter that must not be repeated” A few paragraphs later she states “I’ll stand up for an America that allows each of us, regardless of the circumstances of our birth, to achieve the full measure of life.” Maybe she doesn’t know about kids killing themselves due to hateful intolerance and doesn’t realize that being gay is a circumstance of birth.

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Marco Rubio (R-FL), wants to extend the Bush tax cuts.  The Bush tax cuts were temporary because there isn’t enough money to keep them going.  He plans to repeal the health care reform bill.  Why would you want to stop all the wonderful things healthcare reform will do for Americans?  Things like…

1.  Health insurance plans will no longer be allowed to deny coverage to children younger than 19 because they have a pre-existing health problem.

2.  Free preventive care covering cancer screenings, cholesterol tests, mammograms and other preventive services without charging you a co-payment, co-insurance or deductible.

3.  An end to rescissions. This change is designed to prevent insurers from denying coverage to policyholders after they get sick.

4.  individual insurance plans can no longer impose lifetime limits on coverage

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-09-22-healthlaw22_ST_N.htm#chart

Why doesn’t Marco Rubio want us to have the advantages of healthcare reform?  Well, If he continues tax cuts for the rich than we can’t afford healthcare reform.

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Renee Elmers (R-NC) created the “conservative freakout” over the ground zero mosque that wasn’t a mosque and wasn’t being built on ground zero.

All of us are descendants of immigrants or actual immigrants who came here to get away from religious intolerance.  We’re here to enjoy the freedom of thought, speech, religious faith, and property ownership.   Now, Renee and the gang have turned against religious freedom out of fear.  She fans the fear of Muslims, and is rallied on by a corrupt biased cable news station.

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Rand Paul (R-KY) refused to endorse some parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because big government has no right to make private lunch counters take down those “Whites Only” signs. “If private lunch counter owners want to prevent blacks from eating there, that’s their right.”

This guy is a bigot, a blatant proud bigot.  If you voted for him, I guess you’re OK with that.  What scares me is so much of the country is OK with that.

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Daniel Webster (R-FL) “has aligned himself with organizations and individuals who advocate the application of biblical law to contemporary society, including wives submitting to their husbands.   In his 2009 talk to a male audience he was telling them to focus on their own obligations rather than those of their wives. When Webster says women should pray if they want to, he’s saying they must do so in order to be obedient to God’s word. “

That is just pure scariness.  You’re afraid of Muslims?  You need to be afraid of this dude.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/julieingersoll/3449/the_real_context_of_the_%22taliban_dan%22_ad/

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Ron Johnson (R-WI)  made his fortune through his company making plastic packaging materials.  He is another of the uber rich who poured his own personal millions into his campaign pretending to be a political insurgent who is going to shake up congress.  He stood on a platform of job creation.  Many voters don’t have time for details they are too busy looking for a job.  People like Ron Johnson don’t give two flying figs about you or your job.  He just wants power and he plans to get his millions back and then some.

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Ben Quayle (R-AZ) the son of former vice president Dan Quayle and columnist for TheDirty.com, hates Obama.  Enough said.

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Joe Manchin (D-WV)  loves coal.  West Virginia loves coal because they don’t know how to make money any other way.  Coal companies blow up mountains and dump coal sludge in valleys and build crappy dams that break and kill mine workers families.  Nice eh?

So anyway, Cap and trade’s carbon taxes would destroy the coal industry.  Coal extraction and energy production is so detrimental to this planet that it would be taxed in to bankruptcy.  The coal industry is convincing you that no other source of energy is feasible.  Your personal income taxes have subsidized coal $500 compared to $7 toward alternative energy research.   Joe Manchin has aimed his sites at destroying the cap and trade bill.  He doesn’t want alternative energy even though it will be for the good of the people of West Virginia as well as the rest of the nation.

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I’m not too excited about your choices.

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By the way, not too long ago there was an industry called “pluming”.  Plumers went down to the everglades, South America and Africa and shot every bird in site and sent the feathers to factories in New York and various other cities.  When environmentalists exposed the appalling slaughter, people yelled out “we need the jobs”  Well, the obvious idiocy made ladies realize that hats with feathers were not a necessity and the industry died and plumers learned a different trade and factories made other stuff.  We’ll survive life without coal.

 

 

“You inherit an old house.  A real fixer-upper.  You scramble around to earn some money and scrape together some funding to start improving it.  Some of your better-off friends are a little jealous because, while the place is a wreck, it’s in a great location.  You start fixing the foundations where the floor was sagging.  You spend money replacing the galvanized pipes with copper…you start re-wiring the outlets so they’ll be grounded.  You throw a party even though you’ve just started the renovation.  People who come over see a fixer-upper.  A dump.  Some may see the potential.  Most just cannot believe you spent X-dollars and the house is still a mess.

This country is that house.  The previous administration looted the Treasury and the moral underpinnings of American Values were smashed.  A lot of effort has been made to stabilize the wreckage and it doesn’t show up to an observer who can’t imagine what it would look like if it had been allowed to continue to fall apart.”   David Gene Echt

Half the country needs to be educated or re-educated to take on the jobs of change. He promised us change, and we’re getting it. Now we have to participate,  involve ourselves in the change. Velma Hart is obviously doing everything right, kids in private schools, a noble profession, no credit card, living within her means; what do you say to that? The healthcare reforms,bank bailouts, credit card rules and education changes that Obama has undertaken aren’t helping her,because she paid her mortgage, has health care through the VA (which, by the way, is socialist health care), she doesn’t use a credit card and she has always lived within her means so they won’t help her or the half of the country who lives as she lives , they help the irresponsible half and that half doesn’t want anything to change, and they don’t want to participate in change.

People like Velma suffer because of the speculators and gamblers who have played around with our hard earned dollars and want to continue to do so.  There is also the fear of the unknown that is driven into our minds by the media, which is paid by those same speculators and gamblers.  I won’t even get in to the religious zealots that feed their line of garbage that plays on faith.  They are yelling, because if they yell loud enough people can’t hear the truth.

Meantime, 19 year olds are aiming bullets at each others heads in some sandy venue in the name of religious zealots, media hype, speculators, gamblers and that coveted Kardashian lifestyle.

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post wrote…

In opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power grab. It did so in an opinion stunning in its intellectual dishonesty.

It was unnecessary for the court to go so far when there were several less-radical grounds available. It was audacious to seize the opportunity to overrule precedents when the parties had not pressed this issue and the lower courts had not considered it. It was the height of activism to usurp the judgments of Congress and state legislatures about how best to prevent corruption of the political process.

Nina Totenberg of NPR wrote…

“It will undoubtedly help Republican candidates since corporations have generally supported Republican candidates more.”

Freedom of Speech

Loretta asked me why I complain so much about where we live.  An apology was wholeheartedly given and then a mental inventory was done of the times I’ve been derogatory–>pretty often. Loretta and I live here. This has always been her home. Loretta’s stories of life growing up in the Ozarks make me laugh; what a wonderful time she has had.

I grew up on military bases.  As a teen I worked in a restaurant where we wore nametags stating our name and where we were from.  Mine said,  I was from Don and Barbara. (my parents).  Growing up on military bases was fun.  Like small towns except no one is actually from there.

I asked one of the doctors Loretta and I work with why people around here whoot so much. They don’t whoot on airbases, although they salute often.  In return, he asked me if I’d ever been so happy that I just wanted to holler out my joy.  I decided to try whooting and now I find myself enjoying a good whoot now and then.

I actually love it here and Loretta is one of the reasons why.  We have conversations about dreams, pasts, kids, parents, our fold.  Loretta  doesn’t easily allow anyone in to her fold and I am privileged to be in it.  Her wit cracks me up and she lives her faith.  Many people around here talk faith talk, she exemplifies her faith and doesn’t have to talk it.

We are inquisitive and have had engaging conversations about our different pasts.  Her children and her family are her center. Family picnics and summers at the creek or the lake.  I love that.   She inspires me to see what is in front of me and never complains or says a bad thing about another person or place.  I’m embarrassed that I have dissed her home.

Being accepting is the best way to heal this sore world.  Accepting various religions and ethnicities.  Deserts, mountains, beaches,  cold vs hot climates.  It is a good thing we don’t all like the same things or we’d all be piled up in Lorettas town.

but why would someone come to a beautiful place like this and leave trash.  It makes me mad and I tend to say so.

…we have all of the NEGATIVE effects of “socialized” health care without actually having equal health care for all. Arguments against socialized health care, include the people not wanting the few to pay for the masses. But that is exactly what’s happening here.

I work 2 jobs, pay my taxes, barely make enough to keep a roof over my head and food on the plates of my family, do not get such luxuries. An ER visit typically runs me $2,000+, which I must pay or else what’s left of credit will disappear. I cannot afford health care, and with the economy today, my employers do not offer me any benefits as they won’t let me work full-time. This HAS to change.

http://www.theweeklyupdates.com/our-life/orange-county-medical-service-flawed/

This is an example of a hardworking American taxpayer who is having to go without, due to the current healthcare system.  Not to repeat myself, but, it isn’t a system.  It is a big pile of crap and when you stir up crap you realize how much it stinks.

Now — Let me share with you this exchange I had recently with a young man I know.  He is usually witty and makes funky videos so I sent him Barack Obama’s video challenge.  His response and that of his friend throws off the hope for change.  These boys are in college, so, don’t think they are uneducated knobs.

Also, Whenever you try to talk reasonably about healthcare reform it is easy to find the opposition–>they are the ones  pounding their fists on the table or resorting to foulness.

WHE

Yes please expand the government so I can lose even more freedom.

September 27 at 3:17am

NHA

hmm. while those celebrity judges are busy smelling their own asses and picking their favorite sob story maybe i should make an advertisement full of the real people who want universal health care… not the ones hand picked by the people selling this bullshit to us.

Me

If you are attending a university or college then you are involved in government funded education. What freedom is healthcare reform going to take from you?

September 28 at 12:16pm

WHE

Great idea, let’s make a video of a bunch of people who are really lazy and don’t want to have to work hard for their healthcare.  My parents and I were taxed to support this school, if taxes would have been lowered I’m sure I could have afforded to go to a better university.

September 29 at 3:18pm

Me

not everyone who gets sick is lazy.

September 29 at 3:58pm

NHA

Im simply saying that personally I’ve noticed that people in favor of universal health care are largely behind it for personal gain when they could be acting in the best interest of our country. I don’t think that all sick people are lazy. But i do believe that many illnesses (not all) are a result of the behavior one engages in. smoking causes lung cancer. Failure to wear a seat belt can cause an injury. Drinking to excess and walking down stairs may lead to broken bones. These are reasons why some people need insurance in the first place and I don’t think that our society as a whole should be forced to pay for the mistakes of a few. It doesn’t seem progressive to me. More like a ball and chain.

September 29 at 9:18pm

Me

I know a good man, self employed, no insurance, who drinks plenty of water and lives a good life providing for his family he had a massive stroke. I know a boy, who worked hard. who lived a good life and got knocked off his motorcycle on a freeway on the way home from work –>brain injury. I know a waitress, single, works three jobs, got a kidney stone requiring surgery –>debilitated her finances. All of us can have anything happen at anytime. It is the brothers keeper thing — not personal gain

September 29 at 9:33pm

WHE

Everyone get’s sick, but I don’t care if they die or not, (What?!) have you ever tried anal sex? (What?! again) Because people who smoke, eat fast foods, have buttsecks, and live otherwise dangerous lifestyles are going to benefit from this plan more than me. All I know is that socialized medicine bankrupts every country or state that enacts it.  (our country is so financially stable with our current healthcare eh?)

September 29 at 11:14pm

Me

Ok I’ll go away now

September 30 at 7:57am

NHA

It’s good to discuss these things when we’re all on the same page.

September 30 at 7:54pm

Just an example of the oppositions mind.  I wasn’t sure how to contest any further. By the way, How do you get in to college without knowing how to spell buttsex?  And, what page are they on?

http://www.blackcommentator.com/cartoons.html

Here is a good page to go to

http://factsaboutreform.org/myth.html