It's been kind of a feisty year for a 242-year-old, but nobody can accuse Lady Liberty of taking a nap, and lining up for the Senior Special at 5 pm.

Monday will be the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 14th Amendment, you know, due process, equal protection under the law and all that. The Declaration of Independence was one of our better moments. We as a nation at least talked the talk of freedom. A decade later, the Constitution was not quite so grand, what with slavery and "Indians not taxed" woven into the fabric. The Fourteenth Amendment was the centerpiece our national do-over, to walk the walk, as it were.

So, anyway, birthdays all around. There will be a ballot measure this year to legalize medical marijuana in Utah, and Sally Hemming now has her own room and a metaphorical place at the table in the tour of Jefferson's Monticello.

We still have the capacity to surprise ourselves.

It’s amazing what telling a king to go f##k himself can lead to.

Over 1.1 million American service members have died in all wars since the revolutionary war to give us our freedom. A staggering thought.

That’s fewer than the number of Vietnamese who died in just one war for an independent Vietnam.

More than half this number, 620,000, died during the Civil War.

Kind of a rude thought, that over half of our losses are due to an internecine conflict.

Same century that produced Mormonism.

And yet we still think we are free now lets go set off some fireworks to distract ourselves and turn on the zombievision. Woohoo.

That's a sobering statistic, elderolddog :-/

And the population during the civil war was about 30 million, so losses of 600,000 were roughly 4% of the male population. Most of the deaths would have been of young men, too, so I'm guessing more than 10% of certain age groups. Then think of the maimed and crippled in a day before antibiotics and pain killers, when the typical treatment for a shrapnel wound was amputation.

It's hard to imagine the effect on families and the national psyche, probably a degree of devastation not felt again until the aftermath of World War One in Europe.

17 MILLION Russians died in WWII. 7 Million Germans died as well.3 Million Japanese. Most people think that America lost the most fighting that god awful war. We didn't lose as much due to our equipment and superior manufacturing ability. Plus, we entered late in the game. America turned the tide to win for the allies. America strong.

The US played both wars very wisely in a geostrategic sense although WWI was second only to the Civil War in terms of the absolute number of lives lost. FDR in particular planned the US intervention with sociopathic logic, entering at the last possible moment and paying a low price for tipping the balance in favor of the USA and giving it the chance to dominate the world for decades.

For those of us who think the US played a role generally more benign than malign over that period, as well as garnering disproportionate rewards for its hegemony, it is difficult to see the country voluntarily throwing its power away.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2018 10:06PM by Lot's Wife.

Sally Hemings.

My grandparents, on both sides, came to America to flee the European “isms” in the early 20th Century.

They never looked back on “the old country” with fondness. Being an American was very important to them.

I was born and grew up during the great Civil Rights’ struggles. I’ve watched our country shattered by unnecessary wars, politicians who lied, and major social upheavals. The strength of our country is our diversity. When we all pull together, we do amazing things.

America isn’t perfect, but we have made outstanding progress toward Jefferson’s statement that all men (and women) are created equal. We’ve still got a ways to go, but this is a mighty fine country—warts and all.

America, I love you!

So She was born when IMMIGRANTS, Conquerors, FREEDOM seekers and enslaved arrived (and created their own laws, ways and customs)?

Happy FREEDOM Day, everyday!

M@t

...Free to be you and me!

That's free! We'll take three.

1 for me
1 for you
1 for we

2 makes 1

1 makes fun!

We're happy to be your neighbours still. Glad you're getting a day to celebrate.

We just had our birthday (151 yrs since our Confederation) but there's an argument that we're much older. For now, our official # is much less than yours.

Seems kind of incredible to be so relatively young.

We've lost military personnel in all the wars as well, including Vietnam, although we weren't in it officially.

I don't even want to know the number. We just generally salute them all, those who returned and those who did not, especially every November 11.

I always try and take both days, July 1 and July 4, as days to celebrate the good about each country. Too bad there's always the shadows of the down side. But we honour sacrifices by remembering them.

Thank you Nghtingale. Our countries share a long history. We celebrate both at work since 1/2 our team is in the Toronto office.

Fun to do it twice. No fireworks here tonight tho. Enough on the 1st.