For Independence Day 2022

The inimitable Paul Harvey (1918-2009) and worth your time:

Truly, we stand upon the shoulders of giants.  

Oh, the sacrifices those men made for liberty! 

May we be worthy to have received that liberty!

Happy Birthday, Land That I Love!

Never forget why we celebrate this day:

The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a resolution earlier in the year which made a formal declaration inevitable. A committee was assembled to draft the formal declaration, to be ready when congress voted on independence. Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which congress would edit to produce the final version. The Declaration was ultimately a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The Independence Day of the United States of America is celebrated on July 4, the day Congress approved the wording of the Declaration.

Quotes from signers:

"Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America."
Thomas Jefferson

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin

"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
John Adams

"There, I guess King George will be able to read that."
John Hancock

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right...and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers."
John Adam

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
Thomas Jefferson

"I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom I see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth all the means. This is our day of deliverance."
John Adams

"Equal and exact justice to all men...freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected,these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us."
Thomas Jefferson

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
Benjamin Franklin

How brave our Founders were! They risked all so that we could enjoy their legacy.

May we today, in the 21st Century, stand up and support the principles declared in our Declaration of Independence!

Independence Day Weekend 2015

Hillsdale College's choir singing "America the Beautiful":

O Ship Of State by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
’Tis of the wave and not the rock;
’Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!

The Story Of Our Declaration Of Independence

From Conservative Hideout 2.0:

[The Declaration of Independence] was penned by the great Thomas Jefferson when he was but thirty three-years old. He was one of a committee of five that were formed to bring forth the reasons for our separation from Great Britain. The committee members were (in no particular order):

Thomas Jefferson
John Adams
Benjamin Franklin
Robert R. Livingston
Roger Sherman

A vote was taken by the committee as to who would draft the statement and Jefferson came in first followed by Adams. An interesting footnote is that Adams presented Jefferson with his reasons as to why he ought to be the one to pen the document.

“Reason first—You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second—I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third—You can write ten times better than I can.”

Jefferson wrote the document in his residence where he occupied the entire second floor of a three story house owned by a bricklayer named Graff. It was said that after Jefferson’s death the baby infant of Graff was consistently told that he had often sat on a great man’s knee.

The writing itself took place in the parlor of Jefferson’s domicile on a desk that contained a small writing box that was of Jefferson’s own design. He had previously rented from a cabinet maker who constructed it from drawings made by Jefferson. During the last year of his life, he gave it to the husband of his favorite granddaughter, Ellen Randolph. He was to have said about the box, “It claims no merit of particular beauty. It is plain, neat, convenient and, taking no more room on the writing table than a moderate quarto volume, it displays itself sufficiently for any writing.” (Quarto volume is what we recognize as a middle-sized hardbound book.)

Jefferson never claimed originality of the idea of governance, “of the people, by the people and for the people,” instead he remarked that he was only distilling “common sense” on the subject. True the idea of democracy dates back to the Romans and the Greeks, but in Jefferson’s time, it was a very hot topic. Jefferson expounded on the idea of natural law and the nature of government.

In the second paragraph, Jefferson articulated an entire system of philosophy with his theory on that natural law and governance issue. It stems from property rights and builds upon that. Jefferson did not separate property rights from political rights. For he felt that if one is denied property rights, then one cannot truly have political rights. Property is of course more than just what one owns, it goes to what one does to obtain property. Therefore property, as expressed by Jefferson is one’s individuality. If a government takes 40 or 50% (or more) of a person’s income (property), then that person is not truly free. For when half of one’s work goes to the government, it ceases to belong to that person.

This idea is expressed in what is possibly the most famous sentence in the American lexicon:

“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.”

But when presented to Congress, over twenty five percent of Jefferson’s original document was deleted. In what was at the time, a controversial move, Congress struck out what they viewed as a scathing indictment of the slave trade. Of course, Jefferson resented the changes and said that the passages were “struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves & who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves, yet they have been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.” Congress also got rid of passages that conveyed a censure on the people of England. Jefferson’s reaction? “…the pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with still haunted the minds of many.”

At least Congress left the ideas of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, they did change it from “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable…” to “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

Lastly, Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence wasn’t really a declaration of independence at all. Rather it was an explanation of the actual declaration formally approved by Congress two days before, on July 2, 1776. That declaration was written by Richard Henry Lee, an active and respected patriot of Virginia’s congressional delegation.

It was titled: “A Declaration by the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in General Congress assembled.” Therefore our actual Declaration of Independence wasn’t even called that. And ironically, John Adams was known to have said in a now-famous letter to his wife that future generations of Americans would celebrate America’s independence from England on July 2nd and it would become a great American holiday. Of course, as we all know and history has shown, we celebrate our independence on the date that Jefferson’s document explaining our reasoning behind our declaration of independence was announced, July 4th.

July 4, 1939

Lou Gehrig at Yankee Stadium:

“Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”

[...]

Gehrig knew he was very sick when he stood before the microphones at Yankee Stadium on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day (July 4, 1939) between the first and second games of a doubleheader. Surrounded by his former Yankees teammates, including Babe Ruth, Gehrig received presents and good wishes.

When it came time for Gehrig to speak, the quiet first baseman shook his head. But the more than 60,000 fans chanted “We want Lou. We want Lou.”

So Gehrig — a dying man — told the crowd he was “lucky.” He was lucky because of all the good people in his life. His wife and family. His teammates. The Yankees’ owner and managers. The fans. Gehrig even remembered the groundskeepers and other folks who worked at Yankee Stadium.

He concluded by saying, “I may have had a bad break, but I have a lot to live for.”

Lou Gehrig died June 2, 1941. But he is still known as the Luckiest Man....

Independence Day Reading: Caesar Rodney

See this information at Political Tea Leaves. Excerpt:

...Rodney’s vote for independence was considered high treason and caused him to be branded a traitor to the Crown. As history records, Caesar Rodney gave up the possibility of receiving medical treatment in London because he voted and pledged his life, fortune and sacred honor for American Independence....

Read the whole thing.

Music: "America to Me"

This song always makes me cry tears of happiness and patriotism:




The choral version:

Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration

I believe that the following has been previously posted here at IBA. But it bears reposting on Independence Day:

On This Independence Day, Remember Those Who Served

Memorials to the fallen in Washington, D.C. (hat tip to RP Free Speech), with "Adagio for Strings" performed by brass:

Happy 4th of July from Italy & Slovakia

Erica Marcato

Zuzana Greganova


Claudia Romani

Pictures courtesy of Panorama Magazine

I didn't want to be remiss on day like today and forget our Slavic & Italian female allies, with the latter being governed by an inimitable right-wing, infidel like Silvio Berlusconi!!!