The Significance of July 2, 1776

"Resolved...That these United Colonies are, and of a right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." - Richard Henry Lee, delegate of Virginia, submitting a resolution before the Continental Congress on June 7, 1776

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We take for granted far more than we are willing to admit to, and when it comes to our history, this is no exception. Such might be the case with all peoples and all free nations, but in America in particular, we're so content with the generalities of our history that the facts are often forgotten or ignored, ignored because they are forgotten. Ignored because, most likely, they are not taught. Like the story of Washington with the cherry tree, we celebrate myth as much as fact. This is not so bad, in our case; but the truth is not just what sets us free - it made us free.

After all, it is one thing, is it not, to say that Lincoln freed the slaves in the Civil War, and then quite another to acknowledge that with the Emancipation Proclamation, he only freed the slaves in the South? I think so. And if you think the North was always so anti-slavery, read up on the vast numbers of slaves who entered America through Rhode Island. But I digress...

I'm not writing, here, about the Civil War. At least, not at much length. At the moment, I'm writing of an event - or rather, a series of events - without which the War Between the States in the 1860s might merely have been the product of an imagination rather than a consequence of intransigence and pride. It being the first week of July, 2008, I'm writing about - what else? - American Independence.

Take a look at this piece of correspondence, now just about 232 years old:

"The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more."

Why was the future ambassador to the Netherlands and England, and lest we forget future Vice President and President of the United States, John Adams, so enthusiastic about July 2, 1776? So much so that he wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail Adams, with his feelings on the day that message's subject? (He wrote nothing of July 4.) Well, July 2 that year was a day of great significance.

"This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States..." - Charles Wilson Peale, an artist in Philadelphia, in his journal...July 2, 1776

Yes, at issue that day - July 2, 1776 - in the Continental Congress was whether the Thirteen Colonies would finally, officially break with Britain and go their own separate ways from George III and Parliament. Without that vote (twelve Colonies voted in favor, while New York abstained), there would have been little point to Congress then commencing debate over the final wording of the Declaration of Independence which had been submitted to them by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Benjamin Franklin.

Incidentally, on July 4, 1776, only the President of the Continental Congress, John Hancock, and the Secretary of the Congress, Charles Thomson, actually signed the final draft of the Declaration approved that day. It would be another month before a different copy was signed by all the delegates at Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson was out buying ladies' gloves for his wife, and a thermometer, on July 4, 1776. That thermometer cost 3 pounds, 15 shillings, by the way.

Now, I'm willing to bet that a great majority of the Americans (and others) reading this had little notion of what happened on July 2, 1776 in Philadelphia. They probably have never cared, though ardent patriots they may consider themselves. In fact, to them, July 2 has probably always been just another day on the road to America's Independence celebrations. But, just as we must be conceived by sexual intercourse before our actual birth can be celebrated, America was created - by a wholly different type of intercourse - before it was actually born.

So if you love Freedom, raise a bottle or mug of Samuel Adams lager - if you have one - in a salute to the momentous vote which took place in Philadelphia 232 years ago today (you can of course toast using the beer of your choice; I merely stated my own preference). Do this in remembrance that but for the significance of July 2, 1776, the Fourth of July would be for us what it is for the rest of the world...just another day, to be foolishly taken for granted.

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"The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than had prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America." - John Adams writing to Patrick Henry, May 27, 1776, on hearing of Virginia's decision to support independence

Barack Obama: Change To Be Wary Of

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me - 'He's young and inexperienced, and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?'" - Senator Barack Obama, at recent fundraising event in Florida

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I would like to correct a gross misconception about the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama. Were he to win the White House, he would not become the first Black president of these States united by the Constitution. It is disingenuous to claim this is so. The fact of the matter is that Barack Obama, aside from being an inexperienced, untested, mysterious (in a bad way) and charismatic "Illiberal (only-my-opinion-matters-not-yours) Liberal" with an outspoken, arguably unpatriotic wife, is mulatto....not "Black".

His having a black parent and a white parent of course does not un-qualify Monsieur Obama for the Oval Office. His politics do that, in my eyes. But, you already knew this. Allow me to go further.

Yes, I object to this portrayal of Barack Obama as being that which he isn't - Black, and an Agent of Change, and for good reason. For why would a self-proclaimed agent of change, whose politics are supposedly politics of a different sort (despite his voting record in the Senate saying something different about him) so arrogantly appropriate a symbol of the Presidency - in a remarkably fascistic way - while the election is decidedly undecided?

Months, in fact, before it is held?

Personality cult, much? Look at the Obama seal above. On it we see "Vero Possumus," a.k.a. "Si, se puede" or "Yes we can". His campaign slogan. I guess "E Pluribus Unum," is on its way out the door? Along with "In God We Trust," the United States' other motto?

Obama's campaign seal might as well say...well, not say, but scream... "Sieg Heil!" It's a wonder his most ardent supporters aren't doing so already, the zealots....

Think I'm exagerrating? He's appropriating the symbols of the State, attempting to get the people at large to associate them with himself. He's got plenty of willing "executioners" going along with him, blind supporters eager to make his the only accepted vision of the country's future.

Roman emperors did that sort of thing. Monarchs do that sort of thing. Dictators do that sort of thing. Hitler did that sort of thing. Obama and the Democrats are doing that sort of thing. Pardon me for being wary of such practices, for America's sake...for humanity's sake!

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And despite any efforts to make this race be about something else other than race, Obamaniacs find it easier to portray the Illinois senator as 100% Black. Though they claimed a desire to not make race a part of this campaign, there is an almost unspoken-of tendency by his campaign to inject little racial jibes and provocations into the discouse every now and then, leading opponents like me to question whether they will be labeled - and vilified - as racists due to their justifiable criticisms of Barack Obama.

If I don't vote for Obama in November, and someone finds out about it, will I be labeled "racist"? The late William F. Buckley once said, "Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to learn that there are other views." If I don't vote for Obama in November, will I be sent by Democrats to a re-education camp, for political undesirables?

Are Americans so ignorant of history that they are dooming themselves to repeat the history of other nations? I hope to God this is not so. I really hope not. Between you and me, Obamaniacs could give "Brownshirts" a whole new meaning...get what I'm saying?

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Cold, hard facts aren't important to Senator Obama, or his supporters. Running a campaign based on conjecture, charisma and "good feelings", the substance of which is...a lack of substance, beyond the ambiguous...

Obamaniacs buy into his appropriation of "Hope" and "Change" just as blindly as Bush supporters eagerly bought into the 43rd President's appropriation of "Freedom" and "Patriot"-ism after 9/11. Whether they admit it or not, Barack Obama's proponents think the world of him, but don't think much about him. They think change relies on the election of Barack Obama, and not on their own deeds.

But we don't need Barack Obama to become a country true to its creed. We're not perfect, but we're working on it. That's been the way, our way - imperfect, yet constantly improving - since 1776. And the fact is, we already are a Nation which, for the most part, judges people based not on the color of their skin but instead on the content of their character. Bobby Jindhal, a Republican of Indian descent, is the Governor of Louisiana. New York State's governor is a legally-blind African-American.

We have come a long way, on our own, since Independence. Barack Obama, and his outspoken wife, - as well as his campaign - should recognize, honor and celebrate this. They don't. In fact, they act as if America has changed only because of them, and can (will) only change with them. That scares me, no small amount it does. Come this November, I hope to God we don't take a good many steps back after going so many forward.

More Reasons to Distrust Barack Obama

Every week, it seems, free-thinking, independently-minded Americans (a.k.a. "those of us not caught up in the hype and spin") such as myself get more material from Barack Obama and his campaign, material which we - in this glorious political-cultural societal system of ours - have every right to advertise to the rest of the world as examples of why Senator Barack Obama is not qualified to be the next President of The United States of America.

Case in point:

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"Obama clarifies united J'lem comment"

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Just as it became apparent that Barack Obama was going to be the official Democrat nominee for President, at an American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference he declared that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." A day or so later, an Obama adviser clarified the Senator's statement by saying, "Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties."

The whole idea of Barack Obama saying one thing at a conference mostly attended by none-too-few members of that American demographic most likely to vote Democrat in the next election - Jews - and then his campaign saying another thing, later, which effectively changes the meaning of the prior declaration, smells fishy to me, and is enough to send chills down my spine.

For a candidate who is supposedly the standard-bearer of "change" in American politics, this unfortunate incident once again earns Obama a reputation as a shameless opportunist.

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Nathan Diament, public policy director of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, reacted this way: "If Senator Obama intended his remarks at AIPAC to be understood in this way, he said nothing that would reasonably lead to such a different interpretation."

And as Morton Klein of the ZOA (Zionist Organization of America) has pointed out, "It means he used the term inappropriately, possibly to mislead strong supporters of Israel that he supports something he doesn't really believe."

Is this the kind of President self-proclaimed liberals want in the White House? When I think of all the times President George W. Bush has been labeled a liar, a war-monger, or several other less-than-complimentary terms, and then look at what Obama and his lackeys are feeding us, I'm inclined to fling many of those same insults right back at the Illinois Senator.

And for all the Left-led mockery of Bush which shamelessly portrays the man as a buffoon, I'm not seeing much of a difference between their caricatures of a sitting President and their presumptive presidential candidate's campaign.

When one takes into account these same peoples' expressed convictions that Bush is an evil genius (at the same time they deride him as an idiot), he might even begin to think the "organized mental confusion" embodied by the Obama camp is a deliberate ruse designed to make their candidate seem like an ordinary, flawed "everyman"...which, by the way, worked out pretty well for George Walker Bush.

In any case, I'm more than a little insulted by Barack Obama's opportunistic employment of obfuscation and revisionism in order to ingratiate himself with "American Israel". As if his disingenuous stance this week regarding Jerusalem - a city I in many ways consider myself an expatriate from - wasn't bad enough, last week he claimed an uncle helped liberate Auschwitz.

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Why or how, exactly, I am supposed to be impressed that a great uncle of Barack Obama participated in the liberation of Buchenwald (not Auschwitz) I have no idea; perhaps it is the case that on the heels of numerous examples of "guilt by association" (Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Rev. Michael Pfleger, et al) plaguing their man, Obama's campaign was trying to inject some "virtue by association" to inoculate him against future outbreaks.

Be that as it may, Barack Hussein Obama is still in many ways an unknown, untested entity, and the more that is learned about him, the more reasons we commonsensical - maybe cynical, but absolutely attentive - members of the American electorate have to distrust him. But hey, skepticism is healthy when it comes to American politics. Our motto is "In God We Trust", not "In Politicians We Trust", after all.

The least so-called "liberals" (those I not-so-playfully call "Illiberals") could do is be straightforward with the rest of us in the U.S., if it is their goal to have "Obama the Disingenuous" succeed "Bush the Liar" in the Oval Office. But wait, be honest with us? They can't do that: Their candidate is the Great Obfuscator, remember?


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FURTHER READING:

"Obama's Revisionist History"
by Karl Rove