Chris Grieb Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 Happy Birthday USA! The United States is only 237 years old but it is still a young country. Objectivists and Libertarians should not forget the brave thinkers who made this achievement possible. We should not forget the great ideas they brought forth and the courage they showed in fighting for them. The United States did always live up to its founding documents but it had the great ideas and it always had people to remind it of them. It finally worth mentioned that the 4th of July is one of the two holidays mentioned in Atlas Shrugged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 Happy Birthday USA! The United States is only 237 years old but it is still a young country. Objectivists and Libertarians should not forget the brave thinkers who made this achievement possible. We should not forget the great ideas they brought forth and the courage they showed in fighting for them. The United States did always live up to its founding documents but it had the great ideas and it always had people to remind it of them. It finally worth mentioned that the 4th of July is one of the two holidays mentioned in Atlas Shrugged.We are the oldest Republic under a single constitution. So we are both young and old. The closest we came to constitutional discontinuity was the American Civil War in which the unified Republic was restored under the same constitution (with three additional amendments). However the sovereign nature of the States was eroded and eventually lost with the 16-th Amendments. We have become a People's Republic, in effect. France has had five republics (distinct constitutions) since the revolution of 1793 with periods of monarchy among the various republics. Italy has had a countable infinity of republics. They used to be established and demolished in less than a month's time. Germany is the first republic since the Weimar Republic went belly up in 1935. Rome was a Republic longer lasting than the U.S. but it did not have a constitution. The only things the Romans could agree on was that there should be no King (this held until after the death of Augustus who was not a King but "merely" First Citizen). The Roman Republic was really a series of coups.Someone once said America is the only nation that has gone from barbarism to senility without having become a civilization in between. Greece had its Athens and we had our Philadelphia. Please, no W.C. Fields jokes!In a sense, the Federal Republic envisioned by the Founders died at the end of the American Civil War. We have not quite yet figured out what to replace it with since. Ba'al Chatzaf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross Barlow Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 Here in the Kingdom of Thailand we are half a day ahead of your timezones in the USA, and the sun has gone down already on my Fourth of July. I celebrated Independence Day by exploring unknown ground. I wanted to go reconnoitering in Bangkok, that city of sin and excitement, and I hoped to run into a few Americans, who are few and far between where I live. I studied many maps and tourist guides of the city, picked my target locations that I hoped to find, strapped my compass to my watchband, picked up my umbrella and walked to the river in the oppressively muggy heat of mid-morning. I took an express boat (the size and capacity of a bus) down-river to Bangkok. I saw a couple of “farang” (Westerners) on the boat but they were not speaking English. I was straining my ears for good old American speech. Holidays away from your native land can make you homesick. Getting off at the pier that links to the Skytrain, I saw a farang with a backpack and several high-grade climbing carabiners attached to it, so I asked him if he was a climber. He was, and he was from Boston. We talked about Independence Day and climbing until we went separate ways in the train station. My main goal was to locate two bars in southeastern Bangkok that are famous for live Blues bands late in the evening, Mojo’s and Tokyo Joe’s, and then go to an *American* style bar that would be open for lunch. After long walks in the hot sun, I found both of the Blues joints (closed at that hour) then set out for some American food. I was dying of thirst when I walked past The Robin Hood and The Londoner, but I’ll be damned if I eat in a British pub on the Fourth of July! I also found The Dubliner, which I will visit some other time on an evening when they have a good Irish band, but not today. Torrential rain hit (it is the rainy monsoon season here), and although I had an umbrella I got quite wet from the blowing gusts. But I found my target, a bar named Bourbon Street on a back-back-alley, and it was pure Cajun, the food, the music and the accents of all the farang clientele (minus the Thai staff). I’m originally from Pennsylvania, so the old-timers at the table next to me sounded like they were from the deepest of the Deep South. It was good to hear. I raised my Jack Daniels to them and said, “Gentlemen, a happy Fourth of July to you.” They gave me the broadest smiles I had seen on Americans in a long time. When it was time for them to leave, they stopped at my table and wished me the same. It was just as if I was in New Orleans, except that, this far from home, the fellowship with countrymen was extra special on this day. Goals accomplished, I started the long journey home via train, boat and on foot. Have a great and glorious Fourth. -Ross Barlow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Grieb Posted July 4, 2007 Author Share Posted July 4, 2007 Ross; I forgot about the date line but it sounds like you had a good 4th anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 Kat and I wish everyone a happy July 4th in a spirit of freedom, health and prosperity.Michael & Kat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAMF Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 Happy Fourth, you mugs! *goes to get drunk and blow shit up* Muahahahahahahaha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Grieb Posted July 5, 2007 Author Share Posted July 5, 2007 Kori; In city where guns and fireworks are illegal everybody seems to have them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAMF Posted July 5, 2007 Share Posted July 5, 2007 Chris,I know, right? They're illegal in the city of Kansas City, so we go to Riverside to buy them. That's the only place they're legal. BUT...nobody ever gets busted for setting them off. I mean, come on, EVERYBODY would be in jail. What a useless law. Officer: "Little girl, you are NOT supposed to be waving that lit sparkler...YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!! JAIL FOREVER!"Little Girl: "Fuck you, pig. You better back the fuck up 'fore you get smacked the fuck up." *continues on with sparkler* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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