My First July 4th

[EminTX 131]

Whenever my husband and I happen to drive through a depressed area in our town, we often muse on what his family and friends would think.

It's exactly like you see on Law and Order or CSI Miami.

Or Cops.

[rlogan 2,036]

I live in a resort town, Branson Missouri. It's the 100th anniversary this year, and I was really expecting that there would be a lot of festivities surrounding Independance Day. I've seen in movies how patriotic Americans are, and thought there would be a lot of festivities going on, so had high expectations for it.

Sorry for your dashed expectations!

I don't see much to celebrate. The bill of rights has been effectively repealed. Not even Habeus Corpus remains completely intact - this goes back to 1215. Patriotic to July 4 means to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and those words are just mocked too grotesquely by celebrating it today. There's a pretty good Jay Leno show where he asks people what we declared independence from. There was a history major from a junior college they interviewed who didn't know the answer. Some of the others were pretty funny, but sad for what it says about America's lack of knowledge about itself.

Immigration is one of the things that has completely changed too. The whole process is a repudiation of what America supposedly stands for. Ellis Island is where the statue of liberty is. Because that was the immigration entry point. I've seen the names of my own immigrant forebearers on the wall there. All they did was buy a ticket on a ship. Because this was a free country. That is the definition of "free country". The words on that statue of liberty are a hypocritical disgrace now because all that talk about giving me your wretched poor refuse - that is specifically who we deny entry to. So they enter illegally, like the Mexicans, and we derisively call them "illegal aliens".