We are taking this grand holiday off to celebrate the birth of our wonderful country and the freedoms from which we’ve all benefited. And around here it’s Independence Day NOT “July 4th.” We don’t celebrate a number we celebrate an event, one of the most glorious events in human history: the birth of our nation.
Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for being a loyal Publius Forum reader and God Bless America.
Warner Todd Huston
-By Warner Todd Huston
With Memorial Day weekend here patriots may want to spend a few hours this weekend remembering some of our greatest war films. Here we will talk briefly about over thirty war films, some stir the patriot’s blood, others are amusing, many harrowing, still more are foreboding with a subtle anti-war message. While everyone has their own favorites list — and yours may not be here — all presented here are a great watch.
(2001)
Starring Damian Lewis as Major Dick Winters, the 2001 mini-series Band of Brothers is probably the most faithful film project about World War Two and is a must-see for any war movie fan. At 12 hours in length, it is certainly a commitment to watch, but a viewer is well rewarded at the end and is an experience that will stick with viewers for the rest of their lives. This is as close as you can come to experiencing the camaraderie, deprivation, terror, and hell of war without actually being in one.
(1970)
Unapologetically patriotic and hardnosed, the George C. Scott vehicle Patton is a tour de force of stirring military action punched by an incredible soundtrack. The nearly three-hour film follows the life, war, and untimely death of WWII General George S. Patton that stands as one of the classic war films of all time.
(1962)
The Academy Award-winning The Longest Day can’t help but bring you to the edge of your seat as the film follows one of the toughest battles in U.S. history as Allied forces landed on the coast of France during the D-Day landings. It starred nearly every major Hollywood star of the day including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Red Buttons, Peter Lawford, Eddie Albert, Jeffrey Hunter, Rod Steiger, George Segal, Robert Wagner, and many, many more. Filmed in black and white, the lack of color makes it all the more gritty and inspiring as the Allies push the Nazis back beginning the push into Europe that would eventually topple Hitler’s regime.
Over 30 of the Top War Movies to Watch on Memorial Day”
We are taking this grand holiday off from blogging to celebrate the birth of our wonderful country and the freedoms from which we’ve all benefited. And around here it’s Independence Day NOT “July 4th.” We don’t celebrate a number we celebrate an event, one of the most glorious events in human history: the birth of our nation.
Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for being a loyal Publius Forum reader and God Bless America.
Warner Todd Huston
-By Warner Todd Huston
John Adams was one of the truly indispensable men among our founding fathers. He was the man that wrote one of the first fully written out Constitutions in human history when he wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts. He wrote a seminal book on government that helped inform the founders of our nation, he was an ambassador to France and other European nations, he was our first vice president, our second president, and more.
In fact, Adams was at the center of one of the incidents that set the tone for our national character. When the Redcoats responsible for the Boston Massacre were put under arrest, John Adams stepped forward to represent the Redcoats in court. Many of his fellow patriots were amazed at this offer, some even incensed at Adams for doing so. But Adams said that the rule of law was far more important than merely making points with the home crowd and the Redcoats deserved to have competent representation.
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John Adams’ Reminiscences of the First Independence Day”
-By Warner Todd Huston
This Independence Day holiday is an excellent time to revisit one of Red Skelton’s most endearing works: his recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and what that pledge means.
Through the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Red Skelton was one of America’s most revered funny men. He was everywhere in movies and all across the early TV. Skelton may be little known by today’s newer generations, but he is someone we should never forget for his patriotism and clean humor.
He made quite a splash in 1969 with his personalized pledge of Allegiance.
You don’t get patriotic entertainment like this anymore…
In the words of Red Skelton:
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Red Skelton’s Most Stirring Pledge Of Allegiance”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 241 years as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “Fourth of July” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth” holiday. We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man or government can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God-averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
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241 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The media is upset this weekend that President Donald Trump canceled the “White House Muslim Iftar Dinner tradition started by Thomas Jefferson.” But the media is wrong in every respect. Thomas Jefferson never held any Iftar dinner and only three out of 45 presidents ever hosted one, so there is no such “tradition” to cancel.
Amy B. Wang of the Washington Post led the pack with this nonsense that Thomas Jefferson held the “first Iftar dinner” with a June 24 piece entitled, “Trump just ended a long tradition of celebrating Ramadan at the White House.” (If you can’t see the article at the Washington Post, it can be seen at the Greensboro News & Record.)
Once again the claim that Thomas Jefferson held the first Iftar dinner at the White House was trotted out by the Post’s Wang. She recounted the time when the diplomatic envoy from the Bey of Tunis, Sidi Soliman Melli Melli, visited Washington during Ramadan in 1805.
Jefferson invited the envoy to the White House for dinner at 3:30 PM — the time most Washingtonians had dinner in those days. But after he sent the invitation he was told that Melli Melli could not partake of a meal until after sunset because of Ramadan. Thomas Jefferson was faced with two choices: cancel the dinner entirely or simply have the meal later in the evening at a time when his guest could attend. Being a good host and a decent person, Jefferson chose the latter.
But in fact, all Jefferson did was change the time of his meal. He had no intention of honoring Islam. Jefferson simply was not honoring the religion of “the Musselmen” — as he termed Muslims at the time — when he changed the time of the meal. Also, there is no evidence that Jefferson asked Melli Melli what sort of food a “Musselman” would eat, so no special food was prepared to suit a Muslim’s religious needs. Jefferson neither inquired about religious accommodations nor was any made. All he did was move the time of the meal as a courtesy.
Further, Jefferson sent no letters containing proclamations about the meal being an Iftar dinner nor mentioning Islam, he never mentioned such honors in his private papers, and there is no record that he spoke to anyone about his intentions to honor the Muslim practice of an Iftar dinner.
But to the Post’s Wang, that Jefferson had a dinner at all was somehow proof positive that he invented a “tradition” of some sort. And what was the “proof” she presented that it was in Iftar dinner? She quoted the words of liberal historian John Ragosta who gave the scintillating argument, “Yeah, it sounds to me like an Iftar dinner.”
Wang went on to insist there has been a “modern tradition” of having an Iftar dinner at the White House. But in truth, only three presidents in all of American history ever held an Iftar dinner.
Bill Clinton held the first one. His dinner was politically motivated because at the time the growing Muslim-American community was leaning toward becoming a Republican constituency and Clinton was looking to peel Muslim voters away from the GOP.
George W. Bush followed Clinton’s practice of holding Iftar dinners because he wanted to prove that the U.S. wasn’t looking to go to war with all of Islam in the wake of the attacks on 9/11/2001 and the subsequent implementation of the war on terror. His celebration of Iftar was a diplomatic effort.
And, naturally, Barack Obama held them because he had a personal connection to Islam through his childhood growing up in Indonesia and being raised during that time as a Muslim.
But three presidents out of 45 does not make a “tradition.”
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No, Fake News Media, Thomas Jefferson is NOT the ‘First President to Have a Muslim Iftar Dinner’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
To honor our troops for this year, I am going to share this story about their mettle. What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly made to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13, 2010. While leading his platoon on a combat patrol, Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan. Lt. Kelly was only 29-years-old.
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
“Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths… No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make… for you….
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi… Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines… Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds… But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
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Memorial Day Special: What American Troops Are Made Of…”
-By Warner Todd Huston
“From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”–Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
As we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day to pause in thanks for the sacrifices made by millions of Americans who died while fighting to preserve freedom, a documentary called “These Hallowed Grounds” reminds us that our war dead are not just interred here at home, but are spread across the world on battlefields almost lost to the memory of far too many of us.
When we think of our military cemeteries, those final resting places of so many American heroes, we usually think of Arlington National Cemetery, certainly. But do we think of the hundreds of American military cemeteries in such places as France, the Philippines, and other nations across the world? Sadly, not many of us do.
If you are like many of us, you may not be very well informed about all the many American cemeteries erected to memorialize our legions of war dead. To correct that deficit the PBS documentary “These Hallowed Grounds” is an excellent way to learn about these bucolic and solemn memorials.
Most Americans know of the World War Two cemetery at Omaha Beach, Normandy, site of one of the 1944 D-Day landings. But there are some twenty-one other cemeteries in eight other countries memorializing our dead from World Wars One and Two and the documentary tells the powerful tale of many of them.
Our many war cemeteries are maintained by the U.S. government’s American Battle Monuments Commission and contain monuments to some 125,000 American war dead. The names of another 94,000 missing soldiers are inscribed into the Walls Of The Missing at these locations and this film takes viewers on an important journey across the world to see and learn about them.
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Never Forget the Many Americans Buried in U.S. Military Cemeteries Across the World”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today, December 19, is the day the electors meet to cast their Electoral College votes to actually certify who will become the next president of the United States and if the anti-American left has its way enough of these electors will defy their duty and vote for anyone other than the actual winner, Donald J. Trump. Even if this last second effort doesn’t beat Trump, the whole campaign is thoroughly anti-American and can’t end well.
Thanks to our horrid system of (mis)education, many Americans are just waking up to news of the Electoral College (EC). Many are surprised over the way we’ve chosen our president since the beginning. They are shocked that we’ve never elected our president via the “popular vote” because we are not a democracy. We are a representative republic and the EC is one of the ways we manifest that “representative” part of our system.
What is the EC?
The Electoral College is currently made up of 538 electors. 270 or more of their votes are required to elect a President. Each state’s allotment of electors is determined by the number of members in its Congressional delegation which equals one for each member in their delegation to the House of Representatives along with one for each Senator.
Most states now have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the candidate who won the state’s popular vote. But Maine and Nebraska currently utilize a variation of “proportional representation.”
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Today We See How Many Un-American Electoral College ‘Faithless Electors’ Vote Against Donald Trump”
We are taking this grand holiday off from blogging to celebrate the birth of our wonderful country and the freedoms from which we’ve all benefited. And around here it’s Independence Day NOT “July 4th.” We don’t celebrate a number we celebrate an event, one of the most glorious events in human history: the birth of our nation.
Have a wonderful holiday, thanks for being a loyal Publius Forum reader and God Bless America.
Warner Todd Huston
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 240 years as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “Fourth of July” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth” holiday. We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man or government can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God-averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
Continue reading “
240 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
John Adams was one of the truly indispensable men among our founding fathers. He was the man that wrote one of the first fully written out Constitutions in human history when he wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts. He wrote a seminal book on government that helped inform the founders of our nation, he was an ambassador to France and other European nations, he was our first vice president, our second president, and more.
In fact, Adams was at the center of one of the incidents that set the tone for our national character. When the Redcoats responsible for the Boston Massacre were put under arrest, John Adams stepped forward to represent the Redcoats in court. Many of his fellow patriots were amazed at this offer, some even incensed at Adams for doing so. But Adams said that the rule of law was far more important than merely making points with the home crowd and the Redcoats deserved to have competent representation.
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John Adams’ Reminiscences of the First Independence Day”
-By Warner Todd Huston
As we gather across the nation to celebrate our Declaration of Independence and the founding of our country on Independence Day, it is right that we take stock of the great genius of our nation’s founding.
There has never, ever been a nation like the United States because the United States was the first country actually invented on a specific set of ideals.
The US didn’t just evolve by happenstance, by dint of geography, or centuries of bloodlines. The U.S. was actually a crafted ideal based first on the English Constitution and English Common law as written by Jurists such as Sir Edward Cooke and William Blackstone. But the genius of those great jurists was supplemented with the classic Roman and Greek philosophers along with more recent works by philosophers such as Montesquieu, Adam Smith, John Locke, and others of the French and Scottish Enlightenment.
America was based on the idea that the whole of the people would be educated and enlightened on the principles of the founding and would put their mind to the improvement of the country. Not just for selfish needs but for virtuous ones.
And virtue was the key principle.
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Celebrating Independence Day and the Genius of the Founding”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Usually over the Independence Day weekend we spend time posting stories about America and patriotism. But this is also the perfect time to remember that the left never stops hating America and Americans first and foremost, so here are just some recent stories to remind us of how anti-American liberals really are.
Let’s start with the always too numerous stories of idiot, powermad homeowner’s associations that demand Americans take down their American flags…
First of all, why do American’s ever agree to join a homeowner’s association? I can’t imagine a less American idea than having a group of mere neighbors telling you want color you can paint your house, what plants to put in your yard, or if you are “allowed” to fly an American flag or not?
Anyway, we get at least half a dozen of these stories every year, tales of one idiot group of officious homeowner’s association bosses demanding that people remove their American flags.
In one case we had the HO in Hutto, Texas, telling residents they weren’t allowed to fly the flag with one resident insisting that it is his “right as an American” to fly the flag any damn time he wants to. Right on!
Some apartment building rules are just as bad. Most recently we had the story of a man in Colorado who was told he wasn’t allowed to fly Old Glory from the balcony of his apartment. He was sent a letter telling him to remove it or face eviction. In America! Eviction for displaying an American flag!!
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Tales of the Un-American Fourth of July”
-By Warner Todd Huston
On Tuesday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced that he was joining the other 75 or 80 candidates for the 2016 GOP nomination for president. But during his announcement, Christie seemed to prove that he is illiterate about American history.
One of Christie’s great themes during his announcement is that the nation needs a great compromiser in chief, a candidate who will “reach across the aisle” and work with “our friends the Democrats.”
But in touting his fealty to “compromise,” Christie made an analogy to the Founding fathers that was both clumsy, and completely incorrect.
A little less than half way through his comments, Christie delivered this paragraph:
And both parties. Both parties have failed our country. Both parties have stood in the corner and held their breath and waited to get their own way. And both parties have lead us to believe that in America, a country that was built on compromise, that somehow now compromise is a dirty word. If Washington and Adams and Jefferson believed compromise was a dirty word, we’d still be under the crown of England.
Firstly, when he said, “If Washington and Adams and Jefferson believed compromise was a dirty word, we’d still be under the crown of England,” this doesn’t even make any sense at all. None of these three founders “compromised” with England. Neither did any of the other founders. Once they chose separation and independence there was no longer any thought to compromising with the British government.
So, right there that line makes no sense at all.
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Chris Christie: Historical Illiterate”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The faux President of the United States on the ABC TV show Scandal gave one of those typically left-wing TV speeches that is more like an uninformed screed meant to push a leftist agenda than truthful commentary. In this case the actor pretending to be president scorned the Second Amendment and then said incorrectly that slavery was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
On the TV show, “President” Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn) noted that the Second Amendment was “set in stone” in the Constitution, then as an aside said, “So was slavery, by the way.”
No it wasn’t… by the way. It is a lie the left tells.
In the show the “president’s” son was killed in a mass school shooting sending this “President” into his screed.
Here was the relevant part of the segment.
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Historical Ignorance: Anti-Gun TV President Claims Slavery is ‘In The Constitution’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Looks like the Obamaites are once again attempting to tech our children that the U.S. is an evil country with new nationalized “history” standards for our schools that eliminate the founding fathers and focuses only on a relentlessly negative interpretation of the birth of the country.
I am late to this story, I know (it is impossible to cover everything, certainly), but this one is egregious, so I just had to hit it. Still, it is of a piece with the way the left is attempting to destroy this country by tearing it down in the eyes of our youth so that they grow up with the left’s preconceived notion that this country is evil.
Late last moth documents were uncovered that reveals they way that College Board authors have redesigned the AP U.S. History (APUSH) Framework from a previous five-page, cursory outline that leaves a lot of what is to be taught to teachers and school districts to a massive 98-page document describing in minute detail what is to be taught and more importantly what isn’t to be taught.
The College Board, the administers of advanced placement (AP) courses and tests, is unveiling the new scheme for AP U.S. history which is to be given to 450,000 students who take these history classes across the nation.
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New Nationalized History Curriculum Eliminate Founding Fathers, Teaches Country Built on Hate”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 238 years of existence as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from our Mother nation, England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “July Fourth” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth.” We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsteady steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man can take away from us, rights no man can legitimately prevent us from observing.
Contrary to the God averse America we have devolved into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
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238 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
As a conservative it is easy to look at Washington and find nothing but despair. Socialism is once again on the march with autocratic Democrats and left leaning “Republicans” all seeking to raise taxes, spend more, destroy the integrity of our borders, eviscerate our military, spy on us all, and impose a one-size-fits-all education scheme. In DC, the Democrats are practically indistinguishable from the Republicans. But a bright spot is seen in those states who are rebelling over this top down control by liberalizing gun laws, restricting abortion, and otherwise beginning to look for ways to assert their long dormant powers.
When the founders created this country they imagined that they had practically eliminated the chance for tyranny by creating a governing plan that featured a segmented system. The founders expected each segment to zealously look to protect their rightful powers.
The founders thought that Senators would fight for their states, Congressmen would fight for that segment of voters who elected them, Presidents would guard their own enumerated powers, states would strenuously reject any expansion of federal powers, counties would reject state interference and cities would vigorously enforce their own authority.
There was a time when states’ rights weren’t just some false call used to protect slavery!
Unfortunately, this country lost its once proud obstinacy and everyone began to fall to a socialist-styled assumption that the federal government should control everything from Washington D.C.
It is easy to imagine that the founders would have already started shooting at and/or tar and feathering government officials by now, but the tide of this un-American control from the top is starting to show some signs of collapse. A bloodless revolution seems to be forming.
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Guns And Abortion: States Starting to Rebel Against Federal Control”
By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor — and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be — That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks — for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation — for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war — for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed — for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted — for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
[sic] and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions — to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually — to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed — to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord — To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us — and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
Go: Washington
(This text is housed in the Library of Congress.)
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 237 years of existence as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from our Mother nation, England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “July Fourth” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth.” We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsure steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man can tax away from us, rights no man can legitimately take by force.
Contrary to the God averse America we have stumbled into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
The fact is the Founders did not want a nation free from religion (there is no such founding principle as a “wall of separation” as many think of it today, but that is another story for another day). This is not a Godless nation, but a nation based on Christian ideals.
Secondly, the Declaration of Independence is also a list of the wrongs and slights that England perpetrated against us. In the list of crimes against us that the English Crown and Parliament perpetrated against us is detailed many of the rights that free men must enjoy to truly be free men. This list of slights is not just stuffy old history but are timeless principles which should guide all men even today.
And lastly, to that “all men” point just noted. Our Founders did not write a Declaration that only pertained to their situation in their focused pint in history. Instead they wrote a document to inspire every people to take up freedom and liberty as their own. The Declaration of Independence is not just a document for America. It is one that should inspire all men everywhere to throw off the shackles of government-imposed slavery. It is a document that is not just for the nascent American people, but one that insists, “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.”
The Declaration of Independence is for humanity. Not just America.
And so that is also our charge. Freedom is a cause for all men, not just Americans. The United States should not shrink from the charge to aid and encourage freedom and liberty for all men.
Please take a minute to read the entire Declaration below and re-famliarize yourself with our founding ideals.
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237 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
California Democrat, Representative Nancy Pelosi recently informed the nation that July Fourth isn’t just for fireworks and dissing the Brits any more. It is also the day we should “celebrate” Obamacare.
Sure July Fourth is traditionally celebrated as the day we declared independence from Great Britain, an action that preceded the Revolutionary War and set the tone for our nascent nation. But now it has another significance. As far as Pelosi is concerned it is “health independence” day, too.
“Next week, when we celebrate Independence Day we’ll also be observing health independence,” Pelosi said during a press briefing recorded by CSPAN. She goes on to say that, “this week marks one year since the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act. It captures the spirit of our founders. The spirit they wrote in the Declaration of Independence… So, we’ve had Social Security, Medicare, and now health independence, and that’s something our members will take home to celebrate over this Independence Day.”
Pelosi also bent history to chide the GOP saying that if Paul Revere was a Republican, today he would be running through the streets shouting “sequester is coming!”
You must read her full “health independence” statement to get the full effect…
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Nancy Pelosi Recommends We ‘Celebrate’ Obamacare on July 4th”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Question:
The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, 1789: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
We talk about the “right of the people” to “bear arms” all the time. But we don’t often talk about the “well regulated militia” part that precedes it. So, what is it about? Is this militia still relevant to us today? Can we just ignore it? If unnecessary, does the lack of a need for the militia make the whole Second Amendment null and void?
Background:
Our founders had just fought a war with one of the greatest powers in the world. In the mid 1780s, British forces were considered the best of the best. But our founders hadn’t joined a war with a “foreign power.” They had fought a war with their own government in order to separate from it and start anew. This was because we Americans felt England had violated our very rights as Englishmen.
As our Declaration of Independence notes:
“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.”
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What Is This ‘Well Regulated Militia’ Business, Anyway?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Actor and hardcore progressive Danny Glover should add revisionist historian to his growing resume of left-wing activism after a recent visit to Texas A&M University where he told students that the Second Amendment was mainly meant to keep African Americans in slavery and to kill Native American peoples.
During his January 17 appearance at the university, Glover thought to teach the students attending about the real purpose of the Second Amendment.
I don’t know if people know the genesis of the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment comes from the right to protect, for settlers to protect themselves from slave revolts and from uprisings by Native Americans. So, a revolt from people who were stolen from their lands or revolts from people whose land was stolen from. That was the genesis of the Second Amendment.
This is simple historical revisionism. Slave revolts had yet to become the constant, nagging fear it was later to become for southern slaveholders. There was no such preoccupation in the late 1780s during the debate over the Constitution or in the decades previous to that and it certainly wasn’t a cause for northerners to worry.
Glover is completely wrong in every respect.
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Danny Glover’s Revisionist History: 2nd Amendment Was for Protecting Slavery”
-By Warner Todd Huston
It has been revealed that some Texas schools were teaching that the Boston Tea Party, an event widely understood as having helped spark the American Revolution, was actually a “terrorist” attack on British authorities.
At least up until January of 2012, Texas schools utilizing the history curriculum from CSCOPE, a non-profit and supposedly non-partisan education service, taught that the most famous tax protest in American history was akin to terrorism.
The tact taken to discuss the event was to engage kids as if the Boston Tea Party had just occurred and was a current news report.
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Some Texas Schools Teaching Boston Tea Party Was Terrorism”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Like most conservatives, I felt Election Day was the end of the United States of America. I am not convinced going forward that it isn’t, either. But on this day of giving thanks for what we do have, it would be a mistake not to be grateful for the things with which we have, in our good fortune, been blessed. There are things that we should and must be thankful for.
What are those things? What should we be thankful for? Well, certainly there are all manner of things we should be thankful for as individuals. Our loved ones, friends, perhaps our health and good fortunes. But, as a nation, there are many things to be thankful for, even if those things seem fleeting. Granted, there are many things other than what I list below that we should be thankful for. I have no intention of claiming this list is comprehensive.
So, first and foremost, as a nation we should be thankful for our founders’ vision of a nation created on the premise of self-government, freedom and liberty.
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What We Are Thankful For”
-By Warner Todd Huston
On Friday, October 26, I attended Freepac, Chicago held at the Schaumburg Convention Center. The event, sponsored by Freedomworks, had many fine speakers including Judge Andrew Napolitano, former President of Poland Lech Walesa, John Fund, CL Bryant, Deneen Borelli, John Tillman, Congressman Joe Walsh, and Adam Andrzejewski, hosted by Freedmworks CEO Matt Kibbe.
Here is the video I took of Judge Andrew Napolitano.
VIDEO: FreePac Speech of Judge Andrew Napolitano”
I’d love to see this…
Let it Begin Here is an epic short film projected on an innovative and unique screen system in a specially designed theater equipped with multi-sensory audio & special effects that put you in the action of the moment. Experience “Let it Begin Here” in person at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum in Boston, Mass. Or visit us online at www.bostonteapartyship.com
-By Warner Todd Huston
Talk about making a mistake everyone can see! Atheists in California have done a disservice to their own crusade to spread atheism by launching a new billboard campaign that ascribes a false quote to Thomas Jefferson. That’s right, they’ve essentially become liars for atheism.
In Costa Mesa, California a group of atheists calling themselves Backyard Skeptics have unveiled a billboard to sell atheism to the general public that features a quote they claim came from Thomas Jefferson, the Third President of the United States.
“I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature,” the billboard “quotes” the president as having said. “It is founded on fables and mythology,” this quote concludes.
That would be a stinging rebuke of Christianity, indeed… were it true. Unfortunately for this little atheist group it seems that their quote is a fake quote the group found on the Internet and assumed was real.
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Atheists Lie And Do So On a Billboard!”