A lot has been sacrificed to earn and keep our independence and freedoms. Let’s respect that.
Let’s be GREAT
We can’t control what others do and we can’t stop misfortune from striking. But we can control our own actions. Those who are financially prudent will most likely enjoy success, even if events don’t always go their way.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Excerpt from Jonah Goldberg, earlier today: https://thedispatch.com/next-250/american-revolution-big-deal-250/
The American Revolution Was a Really Big Deal
“It’s become popular to downplay the revolution’s historical importance. It’s also wrong.
…
America’s revolutionary tradition —our tradition—was centered on limiting state power, not marshaling it for social transformations. The Founders’ answer to the political question can be found the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate today: “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.”
The American vision has a high degree of tolerance for inequality and a robust commitment to individual liberty, because in the American revolutionary tradition, the pursuit of happiness is an individual right, while in the French revolutionary tradition, the pursuit of happiness is an obligation of the state to impose collectively.
This difference is everything, not least because it helps explain the success of the American Revolution. The Founders took human nature into account in their nation-building project, creating a system of checks and balances that constructively built on our natural tendency to form factions and to disagree on what constitutes happiness. The French revolutionary tradition is the totalitarian tradition, because it assumes that the state, run by the right people, can dictate what happiness is for society as a whole, and therefore has license to transform not just society, but our souls.
So yes, the American Revolution was a really big deal, and all of the would-be revolutionaries who seek to cosplay the Jacobins or Bolsheviks while denigrating the American experiment reveal their profound ingratitude. Not only do they ignore the material prosperity that makes their radicalism possible, they forget that the freedom to peacefully call for revolution of any sort is a freedom created by the American tradition.
Before the shot heard ‘round the world, the response to even rhetorical revolutionaries and other foes of the status quo was prison, excommunication, and/or summary execution. For this reason alone, even the most ungrateful detractors of the American Revolution should offer a modicum of praise and appreciation for the liberal and radical revolution wrought by the Founders.
Even if you hate America, the Fourth of July recognizes your profoundly radical right to say so.”
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“If your parents or children needed assistance at times and you didn’t help them even though you had the ability to do so.” Democrats want more government, less reliance on family, and they believe in removing parents rights when it comes to children – see debate about what is taught in schools, and remember that “it takes a village”.
“If you spent way more than you earned and accumulated large debts.” Democrats are the party of spend, spend, spend, to buy votes. It was only recently have they been matched by Republicans who finally noticed, starting in this Century with Bush II and Medicare Part D, that no one gets run out of office for blowing through the federal budget and accumulating significant debt.
“If you bullied your neighbors to have what you wanted.” Sounds a lot like tax the rich and pay your fair share – where “rich” is a euphemism for “income” and “fair” is never defined, and never enough.
“If you belittled your brothers and sisters, and called them names just to get your way.” To me, that sounds like names folks use a lot lately – Nazi, racist, homophobe, xenophobe, etc. Remember, “illegal alien”, a highly critized term, was codified by Congress in various laws.
“If you made fun of those who are different, look different, disagree with you.” I repeat, Nazi, racist, homophobe, xenophobe … You are called all those things when you argue in favor of your daughter or granddaughter to keep biological men out of biological women’s sports and the Trump Administration’s enforcement of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when you support the Supreme Court’s decision in Ames or in Administration’s enforcement of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it’s finding that discrimination against white, heterosexual women does not require a superior showing when compared to discrimination against minorities, or when you support the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, finding that it is not OK to have admission quotas for Asian candidates (or, in the past jews).
I’m not great, and never claimed to be. But, yes, I am proud of America, and believe there is some good with the bad in the second Trump Administration. I just wish someone would take away his cell phone and microphone, and ask him to find bipartisan opportunities in future legislation.
And, America is great – even though all of us, frankly most of us are not great, and all of us have flaws.
And, yes, I am a patriot. It was my privilege that America accepted my mom, when she arrived at Ellis Island 100 years ago this month.
While I didn’t think so at the time, it was my privilege to wear the green, and my one true regret in my 73 years was that I wasn’t a better soldier. I watched as two of my nephews served in uniform, one still is today, and a brother who retired from the Navy after 20 years service, another who served in Korea, and one marine who served in Vietnam. My dad and almost all of my uncles served during WWII.
America’s military is so much more professional today – and we should be proud to be Americans standing shoulder to shoulder with them.
Keep in mind which folks don’t believe in American exceptionalism – their support for America varies based on who is in the white house, who controls Congress and who has a majority of justices with their views on the Supreme Court.
See: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/national-pride-declining-america-splitting-party-lines-new-123333460
And, today, too many Americans take the country for granted. Too many would not be willing to defend America if invaded.
See: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/majority-of-democrats-polled-say-they-would-flee-not-stay-and-fight-if-russia-invaded-us/
Today’s the day when we should all be proud to be Americans, and we should all be willing to pick up a weapon and fight if invaded (I know I would do so, I took that oath 50+ years ago and would never renounce it) – I would defend America despite all of our individual faults, and all of the mistakes America has had over the past 249 years.
I am lucky to be an American.
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you sure are very lucky 👍
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I thought about this. Yes, I am lucky. But as the old saying goes – Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
As best as I can recall, I don’t remember anyone else who was with me every step of the way over the past fifty-four years when I:
The only luck or privilege which wasn’t in some way earned would be my reasonably good health and being born the middle of five children to an American immigrant mother. That’s my good luck, my privilege – as I had the best childhood of anyone I know.
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