July 3, 2009, - 1:12 pm

Happy Independence Day! & G-d* Bless America

By Debbie Schlussel
As regular readers know, I’m out on Independence Day/the Fourth of July in observance of the Jewish Sabbath, but I thank G-d*, every day, that I am an American and that our country is still free. Tomorrow marks America’s 233rd birthday and 233 years of freedom and independence from tyranny and the rule of a monarchy. But it also marks decades of letting those who want to take this all away from us, particularly Muslims, impose their wills on our laws, our culture, and our general lifestyle. We cannot allow this to stand or we will fall.
As I wrote, last year:

We hope for an endless, infinite number of repeats and an endless supply of freedom and liberty. The more we keep kissing the rears of those who would destroy us (you know, from a certain “Religion of Peace”), the less likely that will be.

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We must be vigilant in protecting our freedom and the American way of life from interlopers who come here–and a growing number of those who are born here–without the love of those things that are innate to being an American.

Below is a great, moving rendition of “G-d Bless America,” from a recent edition of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.” Try to forget that you are also watching the show’s judges, Piers Morgan–who deliberately endangered the lives of American and British troops in Iraq–and alcoholic David Hasselhoff–who blamed his girlie-man crying at the end of an “American Idol” show on President Bush and the war in Iraq.


G-d Bless America!
My friend, talented writer and U.S. Army Captain James Key, who served as a soldier in Iraq and is now chaplain at Arlington National Cemetery, wrote this in, “A Holiday Message on Hope and Freedom,” a column in USA Today:

When I was growing up in southwest Los Angeles . . . there were times when I wondered whether this was the best that life would offer me. But my family’s and the community’s faith for a better future sustained us. And then I began to think about the happy times. National holidays, such as the Fourth of July, brought my family together to celebrate with “good to the bone” barbecue, sweet potato pie, music and dancing. All this made the adversities bearable.
This July Fourth, as our nation struggles to recover from a slumping economy – and as our troops continue to fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan – I pray that the forlorn spirit of America will be rejuvenated.

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Capt. James Key, U.S. Army Chaplain

On this holiday . . . may we live in the moment marked with fireworks, parades, barbecues and picnics. But we must also watch the day’s ceremonies with a keen awareness of those Americans who laid down their lives for our independence.
It is in their honor that we should never lose hope in tomorrow and always be thankful for the joy of freedom – indeed, the smiles – that each day brings.

Amen.
Happy Birthday America. We are independent today, as we’ve been for 233 years. Let’s stay that way.
***
These videos and photo are from last year’s Independence Day fireworks at Mount Rushmore.

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Remember, this is what Independence Day/the Fourth of July is all about:

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.

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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 of 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.
— John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, 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 York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
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
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
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

All brave men whose courage (along with G-d’s grace) is the reason why our country exists and is still here today, well more than two centuries later. Let’s never forget their sacrifices and protect our freedom tirelessly.
***
Check out some of my favorite July 4th/Independence Day memories and how I’ve celebrated. What are some of yours? How do you celebrate our freedom and America’s birthday?
* I do not write out the full name of G-d, as this is against the Jewish religion and is considered using the name in vain.






17 Responses

As we well know, America is “In Mordal Danger” (borrowing the title of Tom Tancredo’s book) from outside and within it’s borders.Thanks to patriotic citizens like yourself, America shall overcome it’s enemies, foreign and domentic.
Thanks or the moving and powerful message on this blessed day.
Happy July 4 to all patriotic Americans!

Alert on July 3, 2009 at 2:24 pm

Am moved by the patriotic song by those young, talented kids.
Happy July 4!

Alert on July 3, 2009 at 2:27 pm

WE’RE ALL HONDURANS, NOW!
http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2009/07/it-can-happen-here.html
(or will be soon, if they have their way)
Too bad SCOTUS doesn’t take a page from the Honduran play book, and send the cocaine snorting Kenyan back where he belongs.

yonason on July 3, 2009 at 3:50 pm

THE 4TH OF JULY
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men
who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British and executed as traitors. They were tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army;
another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or
hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes,
and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.
Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated,
but they signed the Declaration of Independence
knowing full well that the penalty would be death if
they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and
trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the
British Navy. He sold his home and properties to
pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British
that he was forced to move his family almost constantly.
He served in the Congress without pay, and his family
was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him,
and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown,Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that
the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson
home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General
George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed,
and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed.
The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished forever.
Some of us take these liberties so much for
granted, but we shouldn’t.
So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It’s not much to ask for the price they paid.
Remember: freedom is never free!
I hope you will show your support by sending this to as many
people as you can, please. It’s time we get the word out that patriotism and the Fourth of July has more to it than barbecues and such.
God Bless America!

semich on July 3, 2009 at 7:35 pm

Semich, have seen that before, very moving. Happy fourth

mindy1 on July 3, 2009 at 10:09 pm

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.
Anyone?

West Dearbornistan on July 4, 2009 at 9:00 am

Having grown up in the Philadelphia suburbs (Valley Forge), I always drove to center city to walk around Independence Hall (years ago you could just walk in anytime), stand in the same room as the above painting by John Trumbull and just think about the room 200 plus years ago. Although I don’t live there anymore, I’ll always remember growing up in the crucible of our democracy, the birthplace of America.

Marc on July 4, 2009 at 9:04 am

I for one will be flying my flag up side down this year for the first time in my lifetime.
The Congress and our President do not care about the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence any longer.
They are busy forming the New World Order and systematically destroying the middle class.
I for one think if the founders were able to come back today they would be disgusted that the USA has been turned into a fascist police state run by elitists.
Thomas Jefferson- ìI hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physicalî.
IMHO-I think we have reached the point where we are going to have to refresh the tree of liberty once again.

ScottyDog on July 4, 2009 at 3:40 pm

*Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton*
Button Gwinnett is one of the most interesting of the signers. I went to Button Gwinnett Elementary school in Liberty County, Georgia, which is home of two of the signers–Button Gwinnett and Lyman Hall–and also the largest military base east of the Mississippi, Fort Stewart.
Also, his signature is one of the most valuable in the world: http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/button-gwinnett.html
On our Independence Day, it is good to reflect upon the histories and beliefs of each one of these brave men that signed the Declaration.

Gabe on July 4, 2009 at 3:59 pm

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE
By Kelly Strong
I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze
A young Marine saluted it, and then
He stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He’d stand out in any crowd.
I thought, how many men like him
Had fallen through the years?
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers’ tears?
How many Pilots’ planes shot down?
How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves?
No, Freedom is not free.
I heard the sound of taps one night,
When everything was still.
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That taps had meant “Amen”
When a flag had draped a coffin
of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
at the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, Freedom isn’t free!!

Jackson Pearson on July 4, 2009 at 6:32 pm

We lost our independence (our national sovereignty) ever since we agreed to be a member and supporter of the United Nations and its subsidiaries like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the International Criminal Court or the ICC (we are not a signatory to the ICC but we still support it).
We now have to regain our independence through education and appropriate action. Read the following articles for more information about the erosion of our national sovereignty and the plan for a one-world government:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/election/606-target-world-government
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/election/710
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/election/712
We have to get out of the U.N. One way is to urge your representative and senators to support H.R. 1146:
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/4794-support-hr-1146-to-get-the-united-states-out-of-the-united-nations

ramjordan on July 5, 2009 at 3:20 am

Independence Day and Thanksgiving are my two favorite holidays. Too many people have forgotten what the aforementioned days truly represent. These people just see it as a extended weekend and a reason to celebrate. Nothing with celebrating, but for the right reason. Especially the younger generation. They don’t realize that many men and woman died to ensure we have the very freedoms we have and protect to have to this day. And that needs to be recognized. Our freedoms are so precious and should never be taken for granted. I always say a pray and thank you to people who served our nation (past and present) for the sacrifice they made.
Happy 4th of July to all Americans out there. And please take a moment to thank people who uphold the true meaning of what this day means and represents to all of us. G-d Bless America and it’s People.

Tenn Scholar on July 5, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Yes as our nation is 233 years old now. I wonder if it last another 33 years. I agree with ScottyDog and Ramjordan we have lost our sovereignty. Liberalism, elites, political correctness, diversity have fractured our nation from a unified nation to a nation of petty divisive entitlement nation. Every little racial or sexual or victim group wants to feel they are special and must be catered to by the others. Hell even pets have a voice at the table and they get rights!! It is a few putting self behind for the greater good. That notion is disappearing quickly. The MSM and Hollywood program people with the dope. People live vicariously through Hollywood and MSM. “If it is good for Hollywood then it is good for me.”
Sometimes I time I think of what this country is becoming. I think of the song by Soul Asylum “Runaway Train”. Song is about runaways but the people of this country have runaway from the founder’s intentions. KING HUSSEIN COBRAMA was the culmination of the lost delusion of this country.
Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I’m neither here no there…..
How on earth did I get so jaded
Life’s mystery seems so faded….
Here I am just drownin’ in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train….
Runaway train never comin’ back
Runaway train tearin’ up the track
Runaway train burnin’ in my veins
Runaway but it always seems the same…..
http://afrocityblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/vampire_obama.jpg

californiascreaming on July 5, 2009 at 1:31 pm

From a Canadian perspective some of you are descendants of renegage British subjects, you left the commonwealth out of REBELLION to the THRONE! You may have your indepedance but as you say it came with a price. The forefathers (traitors) owned slaves as was the case in all of the British commonwealths. If you wanted to be different then you would have abolish slavery upon landing on North American shores … instead you retained the same modus operandi as the British did and then you want to call yourselves independant? It was business as usual except with a new flag and mantra. BTW the creed – all men are created equal meant white men – not Natives or African slaves. The constitution was for white men – and others who were different had to fight for rights and freedom centuries later. The British commonwealth wasn’t any better but a least we maintained our loyaly. The War of 1812 taught you all a very good lesson because you would have conquered Canada with your so called ‘independence’- but that was not meant to be. So celebrate, but in truth it’s all a fallacy.

Pesach on July 5, 2009 at 11:26 pm

More from Pastor Manning: OBAMA’S FOUNDING FATHERS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6zrzrY7i5Q&feature=channel_page

californiascreaming on July 6, 2009 at 2:00 am

Thank you for sharing the video of the incredible version of “God Bless America”, the inspirational words of Chaplain James Key, and what should be required as (at a minimum) a once per year read for all Americans … our Declaration of Independence.
May God Truly Continue to Bless America!!!
J.M. Lewis
St. Clair Shores, Michigan
Blog: http://rougerevival.blogspot.com/

Jimmy on July 6, 2009 at 12:41 pm

What a fantastic peace…
233yrs of freedom and independance from tyranny from the British.
Now I’m British but when all said and done no country should impose the will on any other. How ironic that we exported convicts to Australia and look how that turned out, compared to exporting religious people to America and see how that has turned out.
Oh, how you have moved from being abused to being the abuser. Oh how the words in the piece can echo with every country that has had dealing with the USA. My the American dream, I think the majority of Americans are still dreaming. In every society muslims, jewish et al I would suspect that given the chance most people would just like to get on with their lives, but as in some many of the cases its people with guns, with who shout the loudest, people who will kill you if you say anything against them, so dont generalise. I have read your Bio, your better than that.
The Hancock statement with judiscious changes could be any country that has dealing with American.

Uneducated on July 7, 2009 at 8:14 am

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