America, Happy 234th Birthday :)

Today is the 4th of July. In any other country in the world, this wouldn’t matter, but we are in the United States of AMERICA.

On July 4th, 1776,  America officially was conceived (and not aborted) through the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams made a prediction that July 2nd would be the nation’s birthday, but he was off by two days: “The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more“. Independence day, as people know it, is known for fireworks, and a heightened sense of patriotism and nationalism in the United States of America.

Though the country was founded on the principle of natural rights, African Americans were excluded from said rights. It was not until the Civil War, the Gettysburg Address, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as well as the landmark Supreme Court Case Brown vs. Board of Education that African Americans began having the opportunity to achieve these natural rights.

The Fourth of July is to commemorate all our Founding Fathers, and everyone throughout history that has helped this nation reach to where it is today. Though it was founded on the principle of small government, the rapidly expanding role of the federal government in the everyday affairs of everyone is unjust. Abraham Lincoln says it best at his Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

We will never forget. In order to honor this terrific day I will post here two songs I feel truly commemorate the spirit of America.

&

The second song captures my current feelings about the world and my life right now.