Happy 4th of July!

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.

I was raised to do unto others as I would have done unto me. Throughout my life I have tried very hard to follow this simple rule. I am human. I have failed at times. But for the most part, I have been successful in upholding this basic principle. I was taught, and I have tried to teach my own children, that liberty is sacred. As long as I do not invade or usurp the rights of others, no man or government has the right to rob me of mine. I believe this to be true of all men and women. That the right of a person to choose from alternative courses of action, or from various sets of goals, without being restricted by authority, is the truest form of freedom which is accompanied by the obligation to be personally responsible for our own actions. Do not allow man or state to become your nursemaid, and resist those that would accept such conditions as right and proper. Only I, according to my abilities and talents, should determine my prosperity. This should be the goal of any individual.

“Under difficulties I have ever found one and only one rule, to do what is right, and generally we shall disentangle ourselves almost without perceiving how it happened.”

- Thomas Jefferson

I have been- and always shall be a Patriot. However, my loyalty lies not with any government - whether Federal, State or Local or any form thereof. My loyalty lies in the Spirit of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Sam Adams. Ben Franklin, George Washington and all the others who risked their fortunes, property and very lives to give us this Great Nation we now struggle to keep.
However, our Great Nation has fallen from her former Glory and has been reduced to the status of a bloated hog - trampling upon anything and everything that stands in the way of its quest.

“Of all earthly blessings, I place Liberty in the first rank, and of course, consider the obligation to defend and preserve it, as the most sacred of all our civil and social duties…It is not in the power of any single, or few individuals to preserve liberty. It can only be effected by the people themselves; by their intelligence, virtue, courage, and patriotism.”

- SC Senator John C. Calhoun, 16 June 1833