None Dare Call it Independence Day

Have you noticed that you rarely, if ever, hear July 4^th being referred to as Independence Day? Today the typical American is so disconnected from our Constitutional past, for the fight for independence, and the reasons for the fight that it is a source of jokes for late night shows. But, to me it is far from a laughing matter. There is no more truisms then that by George Santayana when he stated, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Today's typical American seems to be more interested that this day offers a occasion to cookout, travel, and or just having a day off, rather than reflecting and taking inventory on the freedoms and liberties that has been bestowed to the nation due to the great sacrifices of our forefathers and those that have came before us.

But, maybe the truest truism is the lack of the use of the word independence. As I look around I see little sign of Americans, less then America, being independent. With regard to the people of America, the word independence has taken on the connotations of a four later word. No one seems to be welling to take personal responsibility for their actions, which is the major consequence of personal independence. Today government is more involved in the lives of the citizens than at any other time in the nation's history. The notion of government entitlement is rampant. There are more citizens working for the government and dependent on the government for their very existence. Our public school systems is one that teaches not to be entrepreneurs or individually independent, but how to be workers, employees, and dependent groups of people. The major political parties espouse government dependence, to one degree or another, for political survival. Imagine if a politician who ran on a platform that included reduction of governmental entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, to only the most needy. He'd be lucky to get his mother's vote. On the top of all of this the amount of debt around the necks of Americans is unprecedented, thus, making us unable to make sound decisions. We find ourselves working more and more for either the banks or credit companies. "Adlai E. Stevenson may have said it best whe he stated, "A hungry man is not a free man". Maybe he understood that a hungry man would more likely accept spoiled meat, not noticing the chains being attached to his legs..

As for the government of the United States, it has not been so dependent on other nations since it's creation. Over the past 20 yrs or so the US has become the world's net importer of things that generations ago would have been unconscionable. The government of the US has burdened it's citizens with debt that it owes nearly every major nation, including Communist China and Russia, Japan, and Great Briton. We literally import everything from beef to fish, plastics to electronics, and labor to currency. While exporting high-technology, high-skilled jobs and infrastructure, and trash. Under the past two US Administrations, Americans have seen high paying jobs leave our shores faster then General Sherman through Atlanta during the Civil War. And with them have gone high wages and skills. It has gotten to the point that economist, people in the know, have begun to refer to America as no longer as a manufacturing driven country, but one lead by the service industry. A nation can not remain strong and independent as servants to the rest of the world. It will not be the masters of their future as those who are the manufactures and developers of wealth. Alexander Hamilton once stated that, "Not only the wealth, but the independence and security of a country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures...Every nation ought to endeavor to posses within itself all the essentials of a national supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing and defense..." Where oh where has the philosophy gone? What has eluded so many of us, due to our mis-education of history, is that America was able to lead Europe to victory in both World War 1 and 2 was not because we had a great army, it was because we had the capability and capacity to build, clothe, feed, arm, and transport not only our army, but that of our Allies from domestic resources. Today there is no way that we can dream of accomplishing that. America today is a net import for all of it's basic needs, even food. Remember that America use to be called "the breadbasket of the World"? Now we're the farmer's hog that cares less to nothing about what we are consuming or who is giving it to us, so long as it is cheap and convenient. Never before in our nation's history have we been so indebted to the world financially nor so dependent on it for our existence. The next time you hear the US Gross Domestic Production [GDP] is 2 or 3%, ask yourself what is gross? What is it on you income statement? It is the figure BEFORE any deductions. Think about it.

Have you taken a moment to question with all of the money earnings on Wall Street that little of it is due to production domestically and not one economist talks of America being the leading place of future international investment or growth? Or what effects that would have on our living standards if this is true? And if this is spoken by so many supposed learned economists, why do our policy makers seem to be doing absolutely nothing to reverse course? How can the US government spend $12 Billion a month in Iraq to establish and promote freedom, while restricting and retarding it in America? We are still the most productive, most innovative, hardest working people, and the most resourceful people on the planet. Yet, we have to import others to do our jobs? America is abundant with natural resources, gas, oil, coal, and others. Yet, we have to import from others? Why is it great if nations like Communist China and India to have 8 or 10% economic growth and not America? We have the capability to. And we obviously have the market to sell to.

Despite what the Establishment Media or popular rhetoric, the US is not a Super Power when it is beholding to so many others, even our enemies. No more than you or I would be if we were maxed out on our credit cards and behind on our mortgage or rent payments. American's "high standard of living" is all being financed totally by debt via US Bonds being sold to the private central banks, like the Federal Reserve, Communist China, Japan, Great Briton, and others. Couple this with the fact the US Administration is maneuvering America into a position to have become part of a Super State, like the European Union, via the Security, Posterity Partnership, including Mexico and Canada, to be called the North American Union. The people of the America, nor the other nations, have had any real voice or any education of this most important decision. Have you noticed US corporate developers and internationalist start talking about what is good for "North America", not America? They are talking about the merging of States of the continent from everything from Bush's Administration ramming, or allowing, Mexican truckers free access to US roads, the creation of the Trans Texas - Corridor [NAFTA Highway], that is planned to cut through from southern Mexico to the top of Canada, to the Executive Branch's, headed by GW, blatant willingness not to enforce and aide in the human trafficking of foreigners evading America to lower wages and living standards.

It is astonishing to me that parents are raising children on processed foods and sugars, hormone and chemically treated meats and dairy products, aspartame, little or no fruits or vegetables, sits them in front of MTV, removes from them knowledge of tradition and god, yet are suprised that they are dropping dead on the playgrounds, and have little or no concept of reality and acts in debaucherous behavior. Just as we as a nation can witness the exportation of all relavent means of production, technology, and manufacturing of goods, mass immigration of low-skilled, low-educated foreigners who are willing to work for less then Americans, at the same time increasing debt spending and borrowing of themselves and government, and yet still believe that we can retain or high standard and quality of life as a super power, and remain soveriegn and independent. Nor can this republic grow strong and remain free without the nurishment of Constitutional education and understanding and respect of the benefits of personal freedom and responsibility. Prophetic lovers of freedom, Thomas Jefferson and Johann Wolfgang, may have stated it best when they said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free ... it expects what never was and never will be." and "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe that they are free."

Americans must reignite our thirst to be free and relinquish the shackles of Orwellian notion of security, demand high standards and virtue for ourselves and for our government, rebutt any notion of socialist or globalization and establish a "American First" policy, and retain the love and appreciation of how special it is to be living in America and to be an American. Yes, dare not the word "independence" be spoken, or else it be done so in vain. America and Americans are far from independent or free that if we do not retreat from the edge we will decend into the abyss and forever relinquish our cherished covenant of freedom and independence.