Happy Belated Independence Day America!

Independence Day in my eyes is supposed to be a day of remembering our past, honoring our fallen heroes, praying for those who protect us even now, recognizing the cumulative sacrifices of all who have gone before and appreciating the liberty and opportunity we enjoy today.

Lo, but for how far we have fallen.

On tuesday night, I had the opportunity to enjoy the Danbury fireworks with some friends.  I also found the opportunity to enlighten my friend’s teenage daughter and one of her friends.  Despite studying US History in school, both were clueless to who we even declared independence from.   Unfortunately, I think this is not uncommon.   I suggest you keep it simple.

I gave them a five minute history lesson about the Declaration of Independence in addition to the sacrifices made by others past and present so they could enjoy the liberty that they have today.  I reminded them that they could have been born anywhere else in the world into any number of societies and their lives would have been much much different.  This is true even today.  Nowhere on Earth are citizens afforded such liberty, such freedoms, such wealth nor such opportunity to achieve.  Imagine being born to work on a rice paddy somewhere in China for your entire life with no education and dying from disease and a broken back at a very early age.  Because of the fireworks, I was also able to tell them about Fort McHenry and Francis Scott Key and our national anthem.

This was a great experience for me because I felt like these two girls, likely for the first time in their lives, actually stopped just for a second to appreciate what they had and where it came from.

On the fourth, I did what a lot you probably did.  I attended a backyard barbecue and planned for some heavy eating and great conversation.   Unfortunately, we got a lot of rain so the time outside was pretty limited. Worse yet, no kickass wiffleball matches were to be had.  More unfortunate was that I kept running into conversations that were filled with hate and idiocy.  I should explain that I only knew a fraction of those in attendance and those that I did were likely relatives of my amazingly bright and beautiful girlfriend, Tammy.  Ever since we’ve met, I have struggled with keeping my extremely opionated political voice on the down low near her certain members of her family.  Many of them are old school Democrats.  Between you and me, I don’t think they even know what it means to be a Democrat, at least in 2007.  From my limited perspective, it seems to mean that bashing Bush is the only significant requirement.

Where am I going with all of this?  I guess my point is that the world is full of people who vote for Democrats but aren’t even remotely aligned with that political philosophy.  The first conversation I sat through at the barbeque was of a group of five or six folks trashing President Bush on the Scooter Libby issue.  They proudly confirmed each other’s Democrat status and laughed about how they didn’t vote for Bush so he’s not THEIR President.  One spoke at length about how Libby got a slap on the wrist and that it was a sham that Mr. War for Oil can smack lady justice around at will.  Imagine me in the corner fiddling with my blackberry reading the list of their hero, William Jefferson Clinton’s list of pardons.  Do any of these people know about this?  Take five minutes and go read this. Do they care?  Where does this hate come from?  I can’t figure it out.  These same people also talked briefly about how upset they were about tax increases.  One was apparently an avid hunter and owned several guns.  To me, they seemed like regular people that would want to preserve our American culture that is under relentless attack from the left.  Yet, they were here attacking one of the few men who is in a position to slow our tranformation into Teddy Kennedy’s America.

Those of you who know me, know that I ended my previous position as Bush’s defender when he inferred that I was a bigot because I want my border secured.  However, the man is my President and he is THEIR President too whether they like it or not and we are AT WAR people.  While Bill Clinton, a man I despise, a man with no morals, a known liar and thief, was our President, I honored his office and his position as Commander in Chief.

Later that day, one of Tammy’s relatives brought out a copy of Michael Moore’s recent movie, Sicko, which from the title, I originally thought would be autobiographical.  It turns out, however, that it refers to the feeling in my stomach when someone wants to play his movie on INDEPENDENCE DAY of all days.  Michael Moore is most famous for Fahrenheit 911, a film where he distorts the truth, edits others opinions in print and on video and flat out lies to make the greatest country on Earth, ours, look like a tyrannical despotic force from the darkside bent on killing babies and stealing oil from beautiful foreign lands where kids play with kites all day.  In my opinion, he is an enemy of our state, a lying propaganda artist and he should be tried for treason.  Anyway, I saw that and made a beeline for the door.   If you want to know about Mr. Moore’s lies, get a copy of Fahrenhype 911 and or visit www.moorewatch.com and www.mooreexposed.com.

All of this is so sad really.  I know not everyone is a conservative.  Some people are genuinely liberals.  Of course, they are misguided and ill-informed but I know from experience that even if they were informed, there would still be some liberals.  However, I dare say that very very few people align themselves with liberal Democrats based on political philosophy.  Many, it seems, are Democrats because their parents are or were, or possibly they were spoonfed liberalism in college, or even more likely, they are constantly bombarded by the newsmedia with liberal lies and distortions.

The question is what to do about all of this.  The biggest problem is that people take their own politics so seriously.  Even people who haven’t got a clue about politics still become unhinged when their understanding of political issues is in question.  I’m thinking that the answer would be a way for people to discover the truth on their own.  I’ve got an idea for a simple quiz that I’m going to work on that might do just that.  Stay tuned.