The Fourth Of July Is About The Declaration Of Independence - A Reading By JFK & South Park's Cartman Visits The Founders

Image of John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence from ushistory.org

A repost from last year.

There's more to the Fourth of July holiday than fireworks, bbq, burgers, beer and flag waving. What the Fourth of July is really about is the Declaration of Independence:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown 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. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

The rest of the Declaration and historical background can be found at US History.org. Also, here is a You Tube video of a 1957 reading by then Senator John F. Kennedy of the Declaration of Independence.



On a slightly less serious note here's South Park's version of the decision by American colonists to declare independence and go to war against England.






And lessons learned from the Founding Fathers for present day America.



Here's a link to the full episode of I'm A Little Bit Country from southpark studios

Have a Happy Independence Day!

Uh-Oh, What Do Barack Obama Supporters Do Now? At Least We Know Africa Is A Continent Unlike Governor Palin

From the Onion via Instapundit - Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are.

Very funny piece of satire. I am glad to see that political humor will survive the end of the Bush era.

Some Obama supporters may have been overly obsessive but they contributed to keeping Sarah Palin out of the White House. This interview by Fox's Bill O"Reilly of Fox correspondent Carl Cameron demonstrates how spectacularly unqualified Governor Sarah Palin was to be Vice President and more importantly, how irresponsible Senator McCain was to select her in the first place.

You Tube Video of Bill O'Reilly Interview

Andrew Sullivan asks what is the responsibility of the press to find a way to reveal important information to the public despite it being acquired "off the record". Sullivan writes of the press covering the McCain/Palin campaign:

... They kept taking Palin seriously as a veep candidate when she didn't come close to even minimal standards for passing a citizenship test. I'm sorry but I think this is a terrible failing, and it is a reason the mainstream media are imploding. They let the rules of the game over-rule their duty to tell the American people the truth as they began to discover it. The truth is that Sarah Palin had no business whatever being on a national ticket. It was an insanely reckless choice. She could never adequately perform the job of president at a moment's notice, and the McCain campaign and their media enablers were putting this country and the world at serious risk by perpetuating this farce.

It was a farce. And it was a potential threat to national security if anything happened to McCain in office. But they couldn't admit a mistake because it would have killed their campaign, destroying our impression of McCain's judgment and management skills. So they kept this farce alive for two months, putting the country at potentially great risk to massage their own careers. Now they are doing all they can to dump on her. But the dumpage goes both ways. The McCain camp picked Palin and stuck with her far longer than any people who put country first would have. Every reason why she should not have been picked is a reason why McCain should never have been president.

From The Corner at National Review:

The trashing of her is unseemly, and some of the particulars—the bathrobe bit for example—don't seem all that important. But if it is true that Gov. Palin did not know that South Africa was a country on the continent of Africa, it is the type of information that voters should know before her career progresses. And I don't think, by the way, that most people on the Left fear her.

And South Park's view on Barack Obama defeating John McCain via Sullivan.

The Fourth of July Is About the Declaration of Independence - A Reading By JFK & Southpark's Cartman Visits The Founders

Image of John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence from ushistory.org

There's more to the Fourth of July holiday than fireworks, bbq, burgers, beer and flag waving. What the Fourth of July is really about is the Declaration of Independence:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown 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. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

The rest of the Declaration and historical background can be found at US History.org. Also, here is a You Tube video of a 1957 reading by then Senator John F. Kennedy of the Declaration of Independence.



On a slightly less serious note here's South Park's version of the decision by American colonists to declare independence and go to war against England.






And lessons learned from the Founding Fathers for present day America.



Here's a link to the full episode of I'm A Little Bit Country from southpark studios

Have a Happy Independence Day!