Personal blog, sharing things that are of interest to me such as Faith, family, America, history, technology, and hobbies.
I first heard Paul Harvey’s broadcast, ‘If I Were the Devil,’ over twenty years ago. I was surprised by how accurately this broadcast from 1965 lined up with the events at the time thirty-nine years later. As the broadcast approaches its 60th anniversary, its relevance to current events has only grown stronger. If you have never heard the broadcast before, I would encourage you to give it a listen or read by clicking on read more below.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
I consider myself fortunate and blessed to have grown up during an era when loving your country and striving to meet its founding ideals was normal and patriotic. Understanding our history, founding, and the course our nation charted was incorporated into our schools and daily lives. We loved our country without reserve and strived to achieve a level of perfection no nation in history had ever even dreamed of. Have we been perfect? No, we have been far from it at times, but our nation’s core ideals are committed to pursuing perfection, although we know perfection is allusive. It seems reasonable to me that your probability of achieving or landing near perfection is highly more probable having aimed for it over not.
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When armed conflict between bands of American colonists and British soldiers began in April 1775, the Americans were ostensibly fighting only for their rights as subjects of the British crown. By the following summer, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, the movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue. In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies’ intentions. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence—written largely by Jefferson—in Philadelphia on July 4, a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence.
Constitution Day and Citizenship Day is observed each year on September 17 to commemorate the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787, and “recognize all who, by coming of age or by naturalization, have become citizens.”
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Unless you were too young at the time, everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they learned of the attack on the twin towers. But do you recall your first thoughts after hearing the news? Do you recall what you were doing in the days and months leading up to the attack?
22 years have passed since that morning I walked into the back loading dock door of the Riverside County Administrative Center, where I received the call just before entering.
Republics and democracies both provide a political system in which citizens are represented by elected officials who are sworn to protect their interests.
In a pure democracy, laws are made directly by the voting majority leaving the rights of the minority largely unprotected.
In a republic, laws are made by representatives chosen by the people and must comply with a constitution that specifically protects the rights of the minority from the will of the majority.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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