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Every year at this time (and throughout the year at random times), I thank God I was born in America. Thanks again, Big Guy.
The American Revolution shaped the world we have today. It is thanks to our Founding Fathers that so many others in this world breathe free. So thanks to them as well.
Remember the words:
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.
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.
Happy birthday, America! May you have centuries and centuries more! And may all people eventually have the same freedoms as Americans.
P.S.: Popular Mechanics tells us how fireworks are made. Via Glenn.
My grandfather left what was then the Russian Empire and is now Poland, intending to come to America and earn money to bring my grandmother and my mother over.
He stopped in Paris where we had relatives who had a textile plant and who urged him not to bother with the arduous voyage to the US but just stay there and join the family firm. Another Polish Jew he met there was on his way to England and suggested that my grandfther just make the much easier trip across the Channel. My grandfather told me once he thought about it and indeed spent an extra week in Paris considering it. Eventually he decided that America was his goal and here he came; his US port of entry was Galveston, not the usual place for Jews to enter the country.
You can guess what happened to the Paris branch of the family and I think of this story frequently when I read that the tide of British anti-Semitism, which receded after the war, has now surged back more thoroughly and nastily than ever.
I have many, many regrets in my life. One of them is that I never said, “Thank you, Grandpa, for letting me be an American.”
I am well aware of our manifold faults but this hardly stops me from loving America and being grateful for being an American. I rather wish teh president of the United States had a similar inclination.
My direct ancestors — grandparents and great-grandparents — came to the US from Poland, Germany and Lithuania. I, too, am very grateful to them for coming to the US so that I would have the freedoms that I do today — including the freedom to live in Israel as a citizen of both countries.
It was harder for some of my ancestors than for others. Some arrived in the US decades before WWI, having come for business reasons. Others fled the Czar’s persecution and oppression with barely the clothes on their backs. Some were wealthy when they arrived, and became wealthier. Others struggled and suffered for years before finally achieving prosperity.
I am grateful to them all.
Meryl: I couldn’t have said it better!
I wish you all a Happy Independence Day, and hope that your America remains your America.
I can only echo the post by Alex. While I do not know of any close relatives who perished in the Holocaust, I know that my grandfather’s village in what is now Belarus was overrun by the Nazis and the entire Jewish population was deported to the death camps. I am extremely grateful to have been born in this great country, and equally grateful to the Americans who have served in the armed forces to protect our freedoms, including my father and brother as well as those serving right now – especially those risking their lives overseas.