Tomorrow is Independence Day or better known as the 4th of July. Every year we celebrate this holiday just as our founding fathers had suggested it should be celebrated. In a letter to his wife John Adams wrote:
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.
(Now you may be a little confused by him saying July 2, but the legal separate form Brittan was on the second and the Declaration of Independence was signed in the 4th which is when we actually celebrate our Independence Day.)
And we still to this day celebrate our Independence with parades, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, illuminations (fireworks), from one end of the continent to the other. Look again at that last part of that sentence. When we declared our independence we only had the 13 colonies (now states) that stretch along the East Coast. And since then we have become a nation of 50 states (not including the District of Columbia and the 9 other territories that are associated with the United States) that stretch from one coast to another that occupies the majority of habitable lands in North America. Was John Adams just being facetious or did he know something then that we see now?
Of course one of the many reasons that we fought for our independence from Brittan was because the people of the 13 colonies where not allowed to expand more west due to the Treaty of Paris 1763 where Britain gained the land East of Appalachian Mountains (Britain claimed that the reasoning for this was because they did not have the man power to protect the colonist west of the Appalachians). So yes the people of the 13 colonies wanted to expand west and once they had won their independence they would set the plan into action. So the real question is how far west did they plan on going from the beginning or did it just keep snowballing?
Moving on, Independence Day is the one main AMERICAN holiday that ALL AMERICANS can celebrate regardless of religion, cultures, and etc. (considering that you recognize the main American holidays are Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving and the 4th of July). Think about it, not every American celebrates Christmas (due to religious beliefs), New Years is a global holiday for the most part, not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving (for either religious reasons or even cultural i.e. Native Americans), but on the 4th of July there are no excuses, no religious taboos, no cultural interferences. There is no reason that any AMERICAN should not celebrate and embrace this day. And that my friends makes this holiday the one holiday that no matter what our political, religious, or cultural differences are, all of us for one day can celebrate being an American together. In what other part of the world can you see this happen? And this may friends is why it is so important not to take this country for granted, this is what makes the American way of life worth fighting for, preserving, and practicing as our four-fathers did.
We the people do not need to change our country we need to fix and restore it. We cannot let people slowly take away our freedoms or our character. We cannot close our eyes and watch our country become less of a democracy and more of an autocracy. We are slowly losing our power as the people because we forget about the history of our nation. And even though some of our history is brutal we cannot change it but we can and have fixed it. And the way that we the people have fixed our country has been from revolutionaries. From the founding fathers to Martin Luther King, these revolutionaries have fixed and formed this country to a nation of free men (and if you’re going to get all fem on me...free people). People cross oceans in blow up boats and cross borders to have a taste of the American way. Where else in the world do you see that? We are special America! We are all revolutionaries as long as we fight for our rights, for our freedom, for OUR way of life.
So tomorrow night when you are watching the fireworks remember why we light up the sky, remember the fight, remember why we Americans are here today!
