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
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
It is well known that John Adams had imagined that July second would be the day that future generations of Americans would remember as their day of independence from England, the nation’s birthday, if you will. It was, after all, on the second that it was proclaimed “(T)hat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
But it was two days later that those gathered in defiance to the King declared a “Declaration of Independency” thereby adopting the famed document that carefully delineated the natural rights by which they claimed independence followed by a list of grievances that would explain why they invoked those rights.
So what are we celebrating? Is it our birth as a nation or are we celebrating the document of Independence? Early celebrations were mixed and a bit confused on that point. Additionally, celebrations on July fourth weren’t that common for a time after the Revolution was over. At first, not many felt a need to celebrate something that had happened and was over. It was time to move on from war in many American’s eyes.
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No, It is NOT the ‘July Fourth’ Holiday, and Stop Saying It Is!”
-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
In the Declaration of Independence our forefathers wrote of King George the III that, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
This was posed as one of the many reasons that we separated ourselves from Great Britain and became the United States of America.
Does this complaint not sound like what King Obama is doing now?
Remember, this sort of government oppression of freemen once sparked a revolution for our founders. What might it do for us?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.
-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
On Fox News Sunday, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer spoke of his dissenting decisions in the several Second Amendment cases that he heard as a Justice. He told host Chris Wallace that he thought that James Madison only included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights as a sop to the states and Breyer insisted that historians agreed. In essence, Breyer was saying that Madison was not interested in an individual’s right to gun ownership and self-protection and for that reason his dissenting opinions against that individual right accorded well with what the founder’s thought on the issue.
But Breyer’s assumption that a citizen’s right to bear arms is not sacrosanct and his following contention that the founders would agree seems to ignore much of the history of the era not to mention the precedents in law and the historical record upon which the founders relied to define their political ideas — including Madison.
Of course, it is a bit ridiculous to take one lone founder’s words and assume that it represents the opinion of all of them. It is quite easy, after all, to find quotes from any particular founder that in no way reflected even a minority opinion of the day. For instance, Thomas Jefferson once advocated that all laws be dumped every few decades so that the next generation could start over with their own ideas unencumbered by past generations. Even Madison thought that idea was absurd. Hamilton found that many of his most dearly held financial ideas left his fellows cold. John Adams thought that we should call the president “your majesty,” an idea that earned him much derision. And Poor Richard himself, Benjamin Franklin, once proposed that each galaxy had it’s own “God” that ruled in his own sphere meaning that there were infinite gods for infinite galaxies. Not every idea the founders had were gems, to be sure.
Still, Madison spoke with most of his contemporaries, not outside them, when he considered the meaning of the Second Amendment.
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Supreme Court Justice Breyer: Founders Were For Restricting Guns… Why Breyer is Wrong”
From the Sam Adams Alliance…
Today is the 288th birthday of Samuel Adams–“founder” of the American Revolution.
Never heard of him? Or at least, only know about Sam Adams because you like the beer named after him? Well that’s a tragedy because in his day–way back in 1776–Sam Adams was considered the thought-leader and brain child behind the American Revolution. Our most famous founding fathers, including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, all credited Samuel Adams with spearheading a movement that changed the course of not only American history, but also truly, liberty and democracy across the globe for generations to come.
Samuel Adams was a modest and humble man who used the communications tools of his time–the pen, newspapers, pamphlets, and person-to-person meetings, to generate a demand for independence against the encroaching suffocation that England was imposing on the colonies.
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Happy Birthday Samuel Adams!”