BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 02:39 PM

Gracias, Sins.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: SINSULL
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 12:36 PM

Happy Birthday, America.
SINS, who just deleted a four paragraph tirade.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: Bee
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 11:22 AM

Happy Birthday, Southern neighbours. When all's said and done, we loveya like brothers and sisters, squabbles and all. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: kendall
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 08:02 AM

I fly the flag, I am a veteran and I have a National Defense medal which I wear on special days. One of my brothers was in Korea, field artillery, where he lost his hearing. An Uncle fought under Patton in Sicily, and half a dozen other Uncles served in the Coast Guard during WW 2.

In my book, flying halfway around the world bombing civilians in Viet Nam, or Iraq does not make you a hero. You did your duty as ordered. Period.I saved a man's life, but I was not a hero. It was something anyone would have done in my place.

The way John McCain acted during his time as a prisoner in Viet Nam, now, that WAS heroic.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: GUEST,Aloyalsubject
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 05:59 AM

I hope it reigns (geddit?) all day.

Long live King George.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: Beer
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 10:16 PM

To all my friends just over the border have a great time celebrating.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 09:27 PM

Here you are, Unc. Some good reading:

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 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.

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.

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.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 09:21 PM

I'll put out a rosette of red, white, and blue. Not that I don't like the country, but there are too danged many folks who are Summer soldiers and Sunshine patriots, who talk of their love of country but who, when the hand is called, show that it was only talk.

One study I saw showed that those who served in Vietnam were, on the average, seven years behind their contemporaries who never served in the military at all, career-wise.

Eight years in the Infantry for me...21 years in the Army (including VN combat) for one brother...125 awards of the Air Medal over VN for my other brother...a nephew currently in the Marines...another who served his five years in the Corps...a father and six uncles in combat in WW2...cousins currently in both Iraq and Afghanistan...and an aunt who served in the Army Nurse corps in the South Pacific....

I just don't care for those who are all bluff and bluster. Too many who fly flags around here are just that. I don't have to prove anything to anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: kendall
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 08:42 PM

I shall fly the stars and stripes, and the flag of England. (With the Stars & Stripes on top, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: bobad
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 07:48 PM

I tend to agree with H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N who said:

"Vy ve all came to vunderful U.S.? Becawss here is de stritts pasted mit gold? Ha! De stritts don't got gold. Iven de benks don't got gold. Becawss ve vant to gattink reech all of a sodden? Ha! No vun believes dis any more! Ectual, ve came to America for plain an" simple rizzon. Becawss here ve got Friddom! Here ve livink like brodders! Here ve are, like dey say, 'Vun nation, inwisible, mit Liberty an' Jostice free for all!'"

Leonard Q. Ross AKA Leo Rosten

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: catspaw49
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 07:34 PM

I tend to agree with James Kunen who said, "America......I love what it could be...I hate what it is."

Spaw

Subject: BS: Happy Birthday Uncle Sam (4 July 1776)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 07:27 PM

232 years and going strong! My flag will flutter in the breeze tomorrow in honor of the country I love so well. I hope all Americans will also fly the flag, and take a moment to reflect on the the goodness and the greatness of the American experience, recognizing that we can be better and greater yet.

JotSC (unashamedly proud of the USA, warts and all)