This July 4 is leaving me with mixed feelings. I am a patriotic person and I love my country with all my heart. As my family and I drove around the Jersey shore, I felt proud watching the American flags waving from horizon to horizon. For all of this country's faults, I wouldn't trade it with any other nation or culture in the world. However, while we're celebrating our independence from England, we're doing so while in our slavery to DC.
While reading a biography on Andrew Jackson, I learned of the battle of Waxhaw, Jackson's hometown. In the battle, roughly 300 British troops killed 113 Americans and wounded another 150. Although the Americans tried to surrender, the British commander ordered his men forward, charging the beaten Americans. According to a witness, the British "went over the ground, plunging their bayonets into everyone that exhibited any signs of life." What would those brave men think of our current America, where half our nation joyfully embraces socialism and the unending growth of the federal government?
When the American capital of Philadelphia fell to the British, our troops under General George Washington escaped to Valley Forge to wait out an opportunity to regroup. It was the winter of 1777 - 1778. Our troops had barely a thing to eat. Many had no shoes and left bloody footprints in the snow as they walked in search for food. New York's delegate to the Continental Congress wrote, "An army of skeletons appeared before our eyes naked, starved, sick and discouraged." When France's Marquis de Lafayette came to help train our soldiers, he wrote, "The unfortunate soldiers were in want of everything; they had neither coats nor hats, nor shirts, nor shoes. Their feet and their legs froze until they were black, and it was often necessary to amputate them." How would those soldiers feel today if they saw our current politicians selling our nation's sovereignty to the highest bidder?
In December 1773, around 200 colonists broke into British ships docked in Boston Harbor and dumped thousands of dollars worth of tea overboard. Instead of paying a tax that they believed was unjustified, they chose to commit an act of terrorism against England. Americans were tired of being taxed to death to pay for the excesses of the central government. Paying homage to this protest, Americans across the country are taking part in tea parties today. While I applaud their determination to stand up against this abusive and intrusive government, it does nothing. Government continues to spend, lie, cheat, and steal the fruits of American labor while sending our jobs to other countries in order to help us compete with the slave labor in Red China. They are not listening, and I fear that most Americans are not listening, either. While protests are happening around the country, I see the news continuing to talk about Michael Jackson. I saw a report questioning if our Founding Fathers would have blogged or sent text messages. Americans protested on tax day and the government answered us by spending trillions more of our money. The government passed a climate change bill that requires every home sold to be energy star compliant. Your house will be inspected and if necessary, you will have to pay for new windows, low flow toilets, and anything else that will bring the house up to code - otherwise, you cannot sell it. How independent do you feel now?
After suffering so much for our independence, I believe if our Founders knew how lazy and uncaring our current nation was, they would either have written a Constitution that was three times as long in order to explicitly express their beliefs in limited government or they would have just saved themselves some trouble. They wouldn't have starved themselves, made their families suffer, or lost their lives in order for our nation to revert back to how things were before our War of Independence ever took place.
So this Independence Day gives me mixed feelings. I love our nation, but I see a government that thinks its "stuff" doesn't stink. They spend our money and expect us to say thank you. They send their children to private schools of their choice and refuse our people of doing the same or to homeschool. They have a top-of-the-line healthcare service, yet want to reduce our healthcare to a miserable, shoddy, rationed, socialized system that has failed in every place that it has been attempted. They work tirelessly at taking away our weapons while they live every moment of every day completely protected by private security and the military of the United States. They tell us that we're selfish for using energy the way we have been, while at the same time they are wasting uncountable energy traveling around the world to kiss ass with world leaders. They will make your life a living hell if you don't pay your taxes, while they give one another a free pass and even cabinet positions if they do the same thing.
John Edwards was only partially correct - there is indeed two Americas, but in reality there is one where the government lives and one where the rest of the US lives. We are still a nation of federalists and anti-federalists, where half our nation believes in a strong government while the other half believes in liberty. Both Americas will pause today to celebrate our independence from Great Britain, but this superficial celebration will be short-lived. The government continues to take while the lemmings in this country continue to hold out their hands while selling their freedoms away. Half of the American people continue to put these scumbags into office over and over again. To that half of the nation, I say take down the American flag this day and hang up the Soviet flag or the European Union's flag for you enjoy slavery, oppression, and socialism. Fly Venezuela's flag or Red China's, for that is where your loyalties lie and not with the plight of our Founders.
As for myself, today I will be celebrating the efforts and honor of our Founding Fathers, those brave and brilliant men that are now regarded as racist, white, slave owners. They are my heroes, from our revolutionary leaders to the youngest drummer boy and from the richest patriot to the poorest farmer - regardless of class, they are all American patriots and I humbly thank them and Almighty God for allowing our nation to exist. Today, I celebrate liberty, although it is not my own. I celebrate the efforts of the people in Honduras and Iran who, like those behind the Iron Curtain of ages past, long for freedom's great embrace. I celebrate the efforts of people around the world that work for those God-given freedoms that our nation today regards as offensive or outdated. Last, but not least, I celebrate the true patriots of our Nation that work tirelessly to change the rotting stench of socialism that hangs in the air of our country. While I love my country, I loathe my government and I pray that we start electing people - regardless of party - that can breathe new life into Lady Liberty. As long as our government is filled with greedy socialists, and our nation is filled with uneducated people engaged in class warfare, we will never truly be able to celebrate July 4, for while we won our independence from England, we are still slaves to a government that never tires of taking our liberties away.
