Happy Independence Day America!
Hope everybody (in the USA) has a fabulous 4th of July and y’all be safe! (Outside the US, here’s hoping y’all have fun too on our behalf or otherwise. 
)
In remembrance of those who made it happen and those who served to preserve our freedom, Thank You!
Dale, have the best 4th you’ve ever had this year. I hope all is well with you and your family.
My wife is from Mississippi, that flag is flown everywhere over there to this day… 
That’s not what today is about though, of course. Today is much bigger than that, the anniversary of why we can even have this conversation… on this one day of the year, I didn’t even mount the Texas flag, flying only the Stars & Stripes.
Times have changed a lot, I grew up celebrating the 4th of July with the entire family at outdoor venue’s after going to the big Parade locally that’s quite famous for it’s size. My dad was into old cars and we traditionally rode in one in the Parade, either a ’37 Cadillac or a ’29 Ford. Those days are gone, sadly, for our family. We used to have no less than 43 old cars out here! From the Renault to a Willys, old Chevy’s and Fords and Dodges from the early 20’s through the late 70’s. Only one left, a 1968 Renault 10 with an original 84 miles on the odometer.
Our family, like so much of this country, has scattered and moved on, don’t see many of them anymore much less celebrate with them. So I thought it’d be nice to wish those that still gather and cook burgers and hot dogs, eat the apple pies and play ball with the kids… a fabulous day!
Thanks Glenn, I don’t even remember last years having had surgery less than a couple of weeks before… don’t remember my birthday last year either. lol Didn’t stop me from getting old though. 
Dale, I’m 66 years old. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, although I can remember when my uncle taught me how to ride a bike in the late 1950’s. Life is strange, isn’t it?
Happy Independence day BLF. 
What you had for breakfast yesterday isn't memorable. Must have been bland ;)
I had bland food yesterday too.
I'll watch other people blowing up their money, but not me! I'm going to light my money up!
Yep, God bless the South.
I’m a “northerner”, born’n’raised, but I still call it “the War of Northern Aggression”.
The Articles of Confederation, never repealed nor superseded, explicitly allowed the states to leave the Union should they desire. The industrialists of the North were socking it to the agrarian South, and the South decided enough was enough. Lincoln, the Great Emasculator, said nuh-uh, you’re staying, at gunpoint, even if we have to kill you. Wonderful.
And it was never about slavery, as Lincoln was even quoted as saying, but it was about federalist control. So much for the 10th Amendment, he alone rewrote the Constitution and decided that the federal government trumped (haha) states’ authority and states’ rights. To him, it was more about “saving the Union” than freeing the slaves.1 (Imagine declaring war on Greece and/or the UK (and maybe soon Italy, too) for wanting to leave the EU!)
So that’s our history lesson for today.
It’s sick that what was always a symbol of southern pride was twisted into a “symbol of hate” and vilified.
Fly it proudly!
I've heard from 'both sides' about this. I think of it as a war of control as well but it was mostly about slavery as a right.
Too bad the politicians back then were racist after to enact jim crow laws. The capitalistic notion was that black money was just as good as white money, but the government intervention forced them to separate them.
Yep, one of my favorite movies is “Mississippi Burning”, and it was disgusting what went on down there for so long. But that resentment ran deep, and from Sherman’s infamous “March to the Sea” and such, they had good reason to be resentful, after being trounced for generations.
Blacks were the convenient scapegoat, unfortunately, as the WoNA was blamed on the slavery issue, just like Jews were blamed for Germany’s ills back in the ’30s and such. But when your culture, and your identity, is constantly maligned, and you’re constantly blamed for, well, pretty much everything, I can absolutely understand the pushback that results.
A while back, “The Dukes of Hazzard” was a bunch of laffs, genuinely funny, but nowadays, it’d never be brought back for reruns because the Confederate Flag on the roof of the General Lee would be too “inflammatory”. You’d think they were flying a swastika flag or something. Yeah, the same (almost) ancient Sanskrit symbol of good luck, which was lifted to become the Hakenkreuz (hope I spelled it right) much more recently.
(Wow, I even remember an old “Night Stalker” episode about that, with Abraham Sofaer. )
Ah, well.
History may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme…
Y’all sure know how to deviate from the original thought process….
America’s birthday is the topic…. stay focused…
Yes, The Declaration of Independence from English rule.
During this period of time we had Presidents that have not been recognized who should not be forgotten. They are the ones who Forged our government we still see today. Take some time and google each one and you will see that some ( not all ) were true Patriots who sacrificed much for this country.
The First Fourteen Presidents of this United States of America ( before George Washington )
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/582763/posts
this year on the fourth i was relaxing and decided
to pick up the ol ipad and do some reading about
flashlights on blf.
thinking the thoughts of an idiot or dope fiend, i clicked
on this topic.
i wish i hadnt.
Happy July 4th to you all!
Say what you want!
It’s not the best….nor the worst!
Butt, at least you can say it!
Gonna watch the Battle of New Orleans replayed in fireworks on a jetboat anchored at the mouth of the Rogue River!
I’ve had worse days in my life.
WHATEVER
This just in, there is just one USA.
No North, South, East or West.
Just the effing USA, United We stand,
Divided we Fall.
And we ain’t gonna fall.
HAPPY 4TH EVERYONE !!!
Happy 4th of july…!!! :partying_face:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
Happy 4th of July!
And people wonder why people hate facebook