INDEPENDENCE DAY

I watched a story last night where a reporter interviewed people at the beach about "The Fourth of July" and asked them what they were celebrating. A lot of the younger people just said "The Fourth of July", as if they hadn't a clue what it was we were really celebrating. I think it would be a good idea to teach our children what it really means by always referring to the day as Independence Day. We need to teach our children what Independence means to America and to us as her citizens.

Only two out of a couple dozen people actually knew that we celebrate Independence from Great Britain on the Fourth of July. Inasmuch as Britain is one of our allies at this time, just telling them that probably lacks a lot of reason without filling them in about what people came to America to get away from.

Then when we explain that many came to America to have freedom of religion (NOT freedom FROM religion, by the way!) they need to learn that at the time America was a British Colony, and we were expected to have only the religion of the British Monarch at the time. Many of those who came to America did so to worship God the way they believed God should be worshipped, not the way that the British Crown dictated they should worship God. They believed that God had a purpose for America as an outpost of religious freedom, that here God could be worshipped in freedom. I have always believed that America will survive anything because America is God's experiment in freedom.

We declared, once we got here, that we also wanted to be free from taxation without representation! Isn't that a joke on us at the present time!?! How many feel that we have any representation for how we are taxed, and how the money that goes into taxes is spent? We see now that special interests get a great deal of our money, and the special interests are buying our interests from our representatives, i.e., if they put a lot of money into a politician's pocket for whatever reason, they are effectively buying that representative's choices that ought to be for our good, from our representative. Lobbying by special interests should be ceased. If there's special legislation that should be presented to a Federal Congressional Representative or Senator, that information should be presented by a State Representative for individuals only, not for organizations or businesses.

I believe we are going through a test right now with Christians being denied the right to speak of their religion in public. This is truly not what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In celebrating Independence Day we need to teach our children what Independence means for America now as well as what it meant in the 15th century when America was "discovered". We need to understand America was already populated by a people who understood what Independence and Freedom meant, the Native Americans. We need to understand that well-meaning, but ignorant clergy from Europe came and tried to take away the independence of the Native Americans by denying them the right to practice their own religion, by demanding they learn to speak English, and demanding they become "European" in their dress and manners.

Perhaps we should define Independence in another way. To me independence means:

* allowing others to make their own choices about the way they want to live.
* It means teaching children that in America they can CHOOSE to be anything they want to be.
* That they have responsibility, through their choices, for the way their lives turn out.
* That they ARE, as each of us ARE, responsible for where we find ourselves.
* That Government is not responsible for our decisions.
* That Government should not be relied upon for anything.
* That we are not "entitled" to anything.
* That Social Security was not supposed to be an "entitlement" but that it was to be funded from the income of the employee, and supplemented with a payment from the employer, until Congress was allowed to borrow it to use it for something else, and then didn't have the money to repay the fund, thereby turning it into an "entitlement".
* That Medicare was not supposed to be an "entitlement" but that it is paid for by the insurance premiums of those retirees receiving Social Security, until Obama confiscated a goodly portion of that fund with his "Obamacare" insurance package, effectively stealing the money from the seniors who had paid into it.
* That the retirement age can be moved forward to seventy or seventy-two because it is better for older folks to keep working, that statistics show that those who "retire" with nothing to fill their lives are more likely to die early than those who keep on working.
* That Americans are "entitled" to their own freedoms of choice in every area of their lives, and that no one in government should do more than make suggestions but in no case should government make rules and regulations altering the choices Americans make.
* Independence means the right to decide how we spend our money.