Happy Independence Day

[Walkinghairball]

I drank too much last night, and thought of those who gave so much for our independence.

[Rocinante]

Continuing a theme...

I happened to pass through George Square in Glasgow today, i.e. BIG RALLY, muslims supposedely affirming an anti-terror position following last weekend's atrocity etc.

There were more cops and tourists ( maybe a 1000 ) attending than muslims. This was supposed to be a huge affirmation from (Scottish) muslims to prove themselves anti-terror and part of the integrated community etc.

I left very disappointed by their lack of attendance, and, do not wish them to be,

a) part of my community, or

b) in my country.

They are all most welcome to exercise their right to leave MY country immediately.

There was even a pro-Hamas tent there collecting blood-money up until the cops shut it down, I f'n ask you

'We extended the hand of friendship toward you, yet you chose to treat such kindness with disdain.'

Let me just say that I am glad that I observe the laws of my land......

[Me]

I am sorry about all that Roc

The world is indeed changing and IMO it's about out dated retoric with religous connotations contrived to control and conquer the world. We will have to fight for our freedom like William Wallace opened Robert the Bruce eyes. We are all going to have to join hands in the name of peace and freedom to conquer these evil people. We have and been trying to show them that they can practice their religeon in peace but they don't want that they want all of us to be like them but that is probably a lie too, they are nothing more than barbarians. I think we should pull out of Iraq let them kill each other off and when they drop a bomb or anything on us or our allies we should do it to them a thousand fold. I am getting sick and tired of all the young people dying for our freedom we own them our deepest gratitude that war isn't going to end they keep inflitrating from the surrounding counties. We need to pull out tighted our borders and we are going to have to live with many more rules in the name of our own safety and I don't mind that as long as they don't take my core freedoms away. People want power power power they will kill their own people for it
There are many things in our own coutry I don't like to much but at least we have some sort of freedoms we can work enjoy traveling concerts freedom of speach many things we even take care of the lazy and infirm
nothing is ever going to be a utopia anyplace there is always going to be some sort of strife knocking on our dorrs we must try and do the right thing for the better of all. I don't think we should be in a war that at the time is un-winable let them kill each other off, defind the enemy and when they want something don't give it to them the hell with their oil.
And if they bomb us show them the mistake they made by a thousand fold. I'd fight and die for our freedom if need be. I sometimes get lost looking at the big picture and really don't know what is at the bottom of all this. I can't understand what some people do and why? I don't understand why people can't be kind and have love in their hearts.

I will also tell people and expose them when they attack me and my family because they have fantasys in their mind of me being someone other than who I am, using me as their nigger to hang their dirty socks on. Sometimes just as individuals we got to go thru our own little personal wars too.

Kevin

[ElfDude]

Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri said on Tuesday the group is preparing a "precise response" to Britain's decision to bestow a knighthood on author Salman Rushdie.

"I say to (Britain's Queen) Elizabeth and (former British Prime Minister Tony) Blair that your message has reached us and we are in the process of preparing for you a precise response," Zawahiri said in an audio recording posted on an Internet website often used by Islamic militants.

Good luck with that over there.

Al-Qaeda has also announced some more big plans for our side of the pons as well.

[ElfDude]

We have people here who have come in trying to tell us how to live too.

Here is the document that our day is remembering:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

......

You realise of course that most of the signatories to that declaration were Freemasons ?

Not really sure what that had to do with anything... but I just read something interesting about the signers:

? Francis Lewis, New York delegate saw his home plundered -- and his estates in what is now Harlem -- completely destroyed by British Soldiers. Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated with great brutality. Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her abuse.

? William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to escape with his wife and children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where they lived as refugees without income for seven years. When they came home they found a devastated ruin.

? Philips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and his family driven out of their home. Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the cause.

? Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and livestock taken. For seven years he was barred from his home and family.

? John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his family.

? Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton. The British occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the college. They trampled and burned the finest college library in the country.

? Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed back to his estate in an effort to evacuate his wife and children. The family found refuge with friends, but a Tory sympathizer betrayed them. Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers. Thrown into a common jail, he was deliberately starved. Congress finally arranged for Stockton's parole, but his health was ruined. The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the British cause. He returned home to find his estate looted and did not live to see the triumph of the Revolution. His family was forced to live off charity.

? Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met Washington's appeals and pleas for money year after year. He made and raised arms and provisions which made it possible for Washington to cross the Delaware at Trenton. In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding his own fortune and credit almost dry.

? George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their home, but their property was completely destroyed by the British in the Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.

? Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland. As a heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had several narrow escapes.

? John Martin, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly loyalist area of Pennsylvania. When he came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even some of his relatives ostracized him. He was a sensitive and troubled man, and many believed this action killed him. When he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors were: "Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have been the most glorious service that I have ever rendered to my country."

? William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned to the ground.

? Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from privation and exposures while serving as a company commander in the military. His doctors ordered him to seek a cure in the West Indies and on the voyage, he and his young bride were drowned at sea.

? Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other three South Carolina signers, were taken by the British in the siege of Charleston. They were carried as prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were singled out for indignities. They were exchanged at the end of the war, the British in the meantime having completely devastated their large landholdings and estates.

? Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of the Virginia military forces. With British General Charles Cornwallis in Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American guns began to destroy Yorktown piece by piece. Lord Cornwallis and his staff moved their headquarters into Nelson's palatial home. While American cannonballs were making a shambles of the town, the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched. Nelson turned in rage to the American gunners and asked, "Why do you spare my home?" They replied, "Sir, out of respect to you." Nelson cried, "Give me the cannon!" and fired on his magnificent home himself, smashing it to bits. But Nelson's sacrifice was not quite over. He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by pledging his own estates. When the loans came due, a newer peacetime Congress refused to honor them, and Nelson's property was forfeited. He was never reimbursed. He died, impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.

And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark.

He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship Jersey, where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father. One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons' lives if he would recant and come out for the King and Parliament. The utter despair in this man's heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his answer: "No."

The 56 signers of the Declaration Of Independence proved by their every deed that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history. "And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

[awip2062]

There's a really good book called The Lives of the Signers that gives more detailed information. Sometimes I read parts to the kids. They need to know what people went through/go through for us to be lazy and spoiled.

[Rocinante]

What, in a roundabout way, I think I was trying to say previously was.....


time for certain groups to really buy into tolerance in all manner of things. It's a two way street.

For everyone's sake

Thanks for listening chaps/chapettes

[awip2062]

We're a good group for listening to one another.

We just aren't a good group for always agreeing. LOL

Still, we are a good group. The people here rock!

[ElfDude]

The people here rock!

Especially when I throw rocks at them...

[awip2062]

And roll!

[ElfDude]

Y'know, t, the word "Creation" in your sig pic there reminds me a lot of the old Carvin logo from the 70's...

[awip2062]

Creation good, Carvin good.

[Rocinante]

I stand by what I said at the top of this thread.....

This may be all more familiar to you than me, given the US perspective...

http://hotair.com/

there are others, apart from me, who have great concerns, obviously..

[Rocinante]

We have people here who have come in trying to tell us how to live too.

Here is the document that our day is remembering:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

......

You realise of course that most of the signatories to that declaration were Freemasons ?

Not really sure what that had to do with anything... but I just read something interesting about the signers....

Education

[awip2062]

I stand by what I said at the top of this thread.....

This may be all more familiar to you than me, given the US perspective...

http://hotair.com/

there are others, apart from me, who have great concerns, obviously..

Dude, there are so many topics on that page. Can you be more specific? Are you wanting us to look at the Hubbel mapping minerals on the moon, the Fillipinos doing the Thriller clip, Ted Kennedy going nuts,....?