Darned Firecrackers!!!

It sounds like a full fledged nuclear war around here right now and it makes me nervous.

I have a sense of humor, but this is spooky as hell.

I even resent firecrackers this year. I resent people flying flags as well this year.

I cant get into the "mood" with this government.

Gee, DG.

Should this be moved to the Rant forum?




It's the same every year. But don't despair, will be over soon. (4th of July that is)

Ok, i'm a patriot. I like the 4rth, i just cant get in the mood.

Lets just say the free food will be the highlight of the day for me.

I'm not celebrating "Independence" day.


It really got bad here in Marstons Mills/Mashpee/Hyannis last night. I think that truck with explosives managed to get thru the bridge undetected with TONS OF EXPLOSIVES.

I like to go see the fireworks, but c'mon! It sounded like a full fledge attack here last night.

HAPPY 4rth EVERYONE!!!!!

Oh dg, I just went through the 3 days we call Canada Day.

I understand how you feel, I never know if it's gunfire or someone letting off something they picked up at the corner store. As a paranoid I tend to avoid the festivities because the whole thing unnerves me.

As nice as it is for everyone else, my neighbourhood has sounded like a war zone for the last few days. At least it's over until the end of October here in Canada.

Have a happy 4th, I'll raise a glass for what it really means in the hearts of true Americans.

"Have a happy 4th, I'll raise a glass for what it really means in the hearts of true Americans."

Thank you for setting me straight. To me it means the celebration of freedom and the pursuit of happiness. I'll keep your wise words in mind today.

This is a good day for every American to spend some time refreshing themselves on the Declaration Of Independence.

Introduction

Asserts as a matter of Natural Law the ability of a people to assume political independence; acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained.



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.
Preamble

Outlines a general philosophy of government that justifies revolution when government harms natural rights.


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain Inalienable 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 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.
Indictment

A bill of particulars documenting the king's "repeated injuries and usurpations" of the Americans' rights and liberties.
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 the 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 of 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 harass 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 benefit 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.
Denunciation

This section essentially finished the case for independence. The conditions that justified revolution have been shown.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British 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.
Conclusion

The signers assert that there exist conditions under which people must change their government, that the British have produced such conditions, and by necessity the colonies must throw off political ties with the British Crown and become independent states. The conclusion contains, at its core, the Lee Resolution that had been passed on July 2.
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.


en.wikipedia.org...

What better day is there to review the text of a document that means so much.

Read it my American friends, it's the basis of the formation of your country.





EDIT: Making sure it was right.

[edit on 4/7/2007 by anxietydisorder]

Well I'm Irish , I have no connection to America at all, Except ive traveled around it ,my sister lives there and My great grandfather went over there in the 20-30's and worked on the empire state building and i must say... Despite the government the bad things that happen the war etc... America IS the best country IN THE WORLD Americans are the most friendly people ive ever met and i hope to return there soon

Im going to get stone drunk to today because my friend is having a pre-party for the Oxegen Festival in a but in my heart Il be getting drunk because of your independence!!

I sometimes wonder how many Americans truely know why the holiday even exists...we have a habit of being very complacent. Any excuse for a party, which in and of itself ain't a bad thing to my mind, but there was a reason...let's remember that before the party.

I hate fireworks...working nights, these three days of little or no sleep sux.

Originally posted by dgtempe
I cant get into the "mood" with this government.

It is tough Dg, especially when you know you're contributing to the patriotic fervor that "they" use against us.

Peace

Freedom is never easy Dr Love.

I just hope Americans can remember what this day really meant to the men that drafted this document and put their names to it.




England should have kicked your asses for sedition, but you stood up to a Monarch that oppressed you.
That alone is something to be proud of.

Anxietydisorder.

Maybe our blood is thinner these days...

Once upon a time, not all that long ago, certainly within my memory, we as Americans never hesitated to let our voices be heard. Didn't matter the cause, we spoke our peace...

Pro-war, anti-war, pro-slavery, anti-slavery, pro-monarchy, anti-monarchy, you had an opinion, you'd find an American to support it, not only verbally, but with blood and treasure, not to mention their sacred honor...

I look out my door this fourth of July and I see not one flag, not even on my own porch (the which I'm going to remedy momentarily). I think we've forgotten the meaning of the day.

Complacency? Not caring anymore? Too concerned with our 401K's to realize all the money in the world is useless without the freedom to do with it as you will.

Honestly I don't know, sometimes I fear for my country. We aren't what we once were...

Originally posted by seagull

Maybe our blood is thinner these days...

Honestly I don't know, sometimes I fear for my country. We aren't what we once were...

I fear for your country to, and I don't even live there.
I even feel like I'm the most patriotic person posting in this thread.
It's not that your blood is thinner, it just appears that the soul is weaker.

I had the opportunity to live and work in many US cities over a 5 year period, and it's an experience I'll never forget. It was 20 years ago, but I bet I'd do better on a citizenship test than most people that were born and raised there.

That may be a sad statement, but I think too many people in the States have forgotten what it means to be an American. I also believe your populous has forgotten that the power is in the hands of the people, unlike so many other countries.

People are scrambling to jump the US borders for a chance at getting a piece of what most of you take for granted. :shk:





Edit: Cause I need to edit......


[edit on 4/7/2007 by anxietydisorder]

The Day The Music Died

'
I'm not trying to be melodramatic here, but its hard to celebrate "independence" this year, at least for me.

I hope i'm in better spirits next year and with more hope for our great country and a better future.

I can cope with natural changes in the weather, i could cope with asteroids about to hit, i could cope with anything "natural", but when we are desintegrating as a nation because of the deeds of mankind it really tears my heart apart. Its just not fair.

We sit around and eat cheeseburgers while so many are dying in strange parts of the world where we dont belong, and unfortunatly, nothing is being accomplished. How unfortunate for those brave men and women who could be home with their loved ones instead of dodging bullets for no rhyme or reason. :shk:

I don't think everyone truly celebrates the real reason. Thanks for posting it!

There's things I dont like about our government, but I will show my support for our troops. I fly my flag on the 4th.

Originally posted by vckums
I don't think everyone truly celebrates the real reason. Thanks for posting it!

You're more than welcome vckums.
The keys to your future is an understanding of your past.

I hope more than just you read the text of the document I posted above.

I copied and printed it and showed my oldest. He was very intrerested in this as they mention this isn school but dont delve into it enough.

all I bought were artillery shells.

so sayeth the wise.


anyways, I had 6 tubes a goin' and I put 3 single shots into each tube and braided the fuses all together thus giving me an 18 shot blast into the sky!

it was righteous.

Then I had the idea that I should take 20 artillery shells and braid them all together and light them on just the ground itself.


Man... I maybe got 10 foot before it started to splode, all I can say, THIS IS AMERICA!

hahahahaha hahahahaha!

I was being recorded on a fone as well but the blast was so powerful it turned of Daniel's fone, ahhh freedom.

Seagull the reason we aren't flying the flag is because for me to reach the holder I have to all but hang off the porch and the last time I tried I about face planted. Scared me alot but the flag is in the closet til I rebuild the porch in Sept.

dg I know what you mean it's been really noisy around here. Seagull hasn't slept and frankly neither have I. I get up at 4 a.m. and the fireworks don't let up til around midnight. In fact they are still setting them off tonight.:bash:rude people.