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The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost,
Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration,
politics without God, heaven without hell.
William Booth
“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.”
― William Saroyan
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill
Ignorance is not an opinion, liberals
I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. C. S. Lewis
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
THERE WILL BE NO THREATS OF ANY KIND AT THIS BLOG, TO POLITICIANS OR OTHER COMMENTERS. thank you.
geeez2014
GeeeZ .... 
My suggestion would be to gather all those who believe this is a terrible place to live and wish it were more like some other place, then provide them all free one-way transportation to that utopia they so fervently desire . . . all rights, privileges, and benefits of US citizenship revoked.
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How to honor the birth of this nation? Read the Declaration. To others.
As for removing stuff that brought dishonor to this country?
Remove the Democratic Party, the party of slavery and the KKK.
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“How can we honor this country’s birth?!”
Well, we can start by thanking God that B.O. is gone and we were saved from the ravages of Shrillary!
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We could honor our founding fathers and those who served America with honor and distinction over the past 241 years, particularly those who gave up their lives that we may have such a great country. Beyond this, we can reconcile ourselves to do a better job voting … dedicate ourselves never again to elect corrupt executives and legislators. As for the dimwit who bemoans our nation, our Constitution permits such displays of pathetic stupidity, but I certainly agree with your earlier commenters.
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“dedicate ourselves never again to elect corrupt executives and legislators.”
A noble concept, but one for which my wife has an axiom: “Pag puti ang uwak” (When the crow turns white).
The problem is that most elected officials initially go to D.C. with the noblest of intentions, the loftiest of goals, the purest of ethics. But, dammit . . . there’s somethin in the water in Ol’ Swampy, a bacterium which migrates to their brains and morphs them into mealy-mouthed, double-dealin, money-grubbin, power-hungry partisan homesteaders.
As HST once said, you can’t get rich in politics unless you’re a crook. I don’t think they GO there as crooks, but most of ’em leave Washington as millionaires. It’s pandemic in the Potomac.
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If not for slavery of his forbears, he would be in Africa…living a better life, really? Most of Africa decided to throw off the “chains of colonialism” and now what a grand piece of work is left.
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“If not for slavery of his forbears, he would be in Africa”
I submit: “If not for slavery of his forbears” [he] wouldn’t even exist!
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R U tellin me that 4 bears started this whole thing? Were they RUSSIAN bears? Oh . . . I see, they were Polar bears, whiteys, right?
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I love Prager’s idea of a 4th of July Seder – some ritual that gets everyone to participate in remembering the ‘why’ and the purpose. Callers have had fun and deep examples of what they’ve done over the years.
As for that man you cite, wouldn’t that be like me saying “I can’t celebrate our country because some of us keep electing Nancy Pelosi to congress and she’s so divisive”?
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Here is a PDF for a seder ceremony that may inspire readers:
Click to access 4th-of-July-Declaration.pdf
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Bocopro… try progenitor….
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So . . . we DO acknowledge the diff ‘twixt “forbear” and “forebear”?
Sorry . . . I’m a compulsive pedant where homonyms are concerned sometimes. Often just a thoughtless impulse, usually regretted. My daughters hate me for it. My sons couldn’t care less.
My wife calls me “makulit pilosopo” which to her means something like “overeducated pain in the ass.”
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Baysider, that is a brilliant idea of Prager’s! It’s perfect and I’ll be sending it to my very dear Rabbi friend, Hal. Thanks. “I can’t celebrate our country because some of us keep electing Nancy Pelosi to congress and she’s so divisive”? WELL SAID.
It’s like when we all despised what Obama stood for, ideologically, yet we haven’t sent our youth to burn things, to start private racist groups like BLM, we haven’t threatened to shut down every single law he privileged into existence, we didn’t send Bush around the world to slam America….
and we are the bigots. Go figure.
Bocopro..it was not “FOUR BEARERS!” 🙂 HA!
EVERYONE:
I should have put quotes around the subject of the post because I meant to use it more as what this jerk said …it wasn’t MY question, but I’m really rather glad I didn’t because we got some good stuff going here, thanks!
BUnkerville..playing off the Bocopro stuff, I saw PROGENITOR and thought “is that a very very good gynecologist?” (ugh!)
MY HUSBAND once told a black acquaintance in my French class in Paris…when she came to dinner and argued viciously against colonists in Africa “You know, I have to tell you, I sometimes think that were it not for colonies by European countries, many Africans would still be in the trees eating bananas…” to which I silently snuck out of the room and emailed a friend in America “You won’t BELIEVE what he just SAID!” To the girl’s credit, she remained and they continued to has it out! I stayed hiding in our bedroom much of the rest of the evening. Then I had to serve desert and was glad to see things had calmed.
I believe Mr. Z was one of the least racist people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, but this surprised even me, and I realized it wasn’t a racist statement as much as it was just plain TRUTH and a pretty good rejoinder to what she’d been prattling on and on about, attacking all the negatives of ‘oppression’ of Africans, etc.
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The classic proof is, of course, Zimbabwe.
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“many Africans would still be in the trees eating bananas…”
I assume that “desert” wasn’t banana splits! (LOL)
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bocopro….oh, yes…so true. SO SO SAD.
i once met a missionary who’s lived there about 25 years! She said Mogabe announced a vacation for the country…then closed all the gas stations so nobody could go anywhere. He’s vicious. And that’s only a small part of the evils.
JMB: I SWEAR I almost added “desert, which thankfully did NOT include a banana!” GOod minds
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Z, I believe your husband was right in his answer, even though I’m sure many a brilliant mind has gone to waste w/o the proper exposure to schooling. The reverse is probably true, also, that many common people w/o any ambition would probably been swinging in those banana trees had they been born in Africa.
Reminds me of the old saying “A mind is terrible thing to waste.”
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Aren’t you just so glad I stopped by today?? Grin here..
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Bunkerville…aren’t YOU? I AM 🙂
Mal…The problem with the Africans is we saw a lot of Africans living in Paris, in a VERY expensive neighborhood….they come and learn and don’t go BACK. Plus, the diplomats have chauffer-driven VERY expensive limos and wear silk suits…they’re TOTALLY screwing the people back home…saw it a LOT.
We see lots of brilliant minds in Black America….Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Frederick Douglas, etc etc…so many of them, so WE KNOW Anybody in Africa could raise up but they’re so kept down by their overseers that they can’t get a break.
Also, apartheid came with very little training….suddenly, people had freedom but no life experience but living on plantations, literally, like ours in the South. I personally knew a S African family who had Blacks working their farms for generations…they told us those good people begged to stay with them but they couldn’t….had to go. VERY sad.
There hadn’t been enough education before apartheid was over, so we’re left with hideous townships of poverty, disease and missionaries (I know one myself) trying to help.
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How? I’d say take back the schools, reinsert disipline and patriotism.
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The influx into what used to be Europe isn’t going to subside, it appears:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/jan/11/population-growth-in-africa-grasping-the-scale-of-the-challenge
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Anybody from Ferguson must certainly understand that Mike Brown was a thug and a slug. If not then they were one of the rioters, and don’t deserve the advantages of being in a free country like the United States of America. Come to think of it, there is not other country. Even Canada is going the way of the speech and thought police.
At any rage, it’s barbecue and beer for me. The rest of you can veg out. (It’s a joke.)
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rage
rate
oh, what the heck.
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Bob, Ooooooh veggies ! Kidding but people actually say that. What… If I want veggies, I’ll bite a tree on the way to work. I ordered a Chilean Sea Bass on special for lunch at a local Chinese place. It came surrounded by all sorts of vegetable When I finished the waitress said, you no eat any vegetable! I said I thought that was just decoration.
Ok Quick – someone name a successful African country..
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Is film maker Chris Phillips a Progressive? His abrogation of America’s heritage indicates to me that he is a Progressive.
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How can we honor this country’s birth?
Read the Declaration of Independence aloud. Or listen to and read along with Max McLean; that audio with read-along is posted at my site for Independence Day 2017. A mere 10 minutes long.
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“You know, I have to tell you, I sometimes think that were it not for colonies by European countries, many Africans would still be in the trees eating bananas…”
LOL!
I think that I heard my father say something quite similar to the above.
The ring of truth! And without the filter of political correctness, which has turned into a crazy muzzle of sorts.
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Kid,
I’d say take back the schools, reinsert disipline and patriotism.
If only!
Around here, the parents would first have to be educated and disciplined!
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Baysider,
I like Prager’s idea! A solemn ritual would greatly affect some people. Not all, of course.
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Bob,
At any rage, it’s barbecue and beer for me.
That sounds wonderful! But the doctors will not allow me to have even one single drink — for over a year now. 😦
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Bocopro,
The influx into what used to be Europe isn’t going to subside, it appears.
The coming to fruition of Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints.
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The American Seder:
Sit down to barbecue, say grace, read the Declaration.
Pray for America.
Chow down.
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I think “at any RAGE” was Freudian and appropriate…we are in a RAGE….but we should take a break for beer and whatever else…(or vodka!)
Kid, when we were in Singapore, I had dinner with Mr. Z and 8 Asians…a business dinner at a very swanky hotel…they all ordered sharkfin soup..HUGELY expensive. The broth was probably THE best I’d ever had but I couldn’t eat the sharkfin becuase it’s got the consistency of eating a woman’s wet nylon stockings! you should have seen the waitress when she removed my bowl, my having left the “piece de la resistance” behind 🙂 I had visions of one of the waitresses gulping it down when she hit the kitchen doors!
Ed…super 4th of July post all in one small comment.
AOW…you can’t imagine the stress I felt typing that and then pushing “post comment”….i figured if anybody’s offended, they’re reading the wrong blog AND they’re too tied up in political to be correct! 🙂 Hey, that’s a pretty good take on that phrase, huh?
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Z, Yes, it’s interesting what people come to regard as delicacies. In China, they love Chicken Feet on the Dim Sum menu. Some other places it’s chocolate covered spider. Maybe in N Korea, it is California Grass.
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Successful African country: Botswana (as things African go), and South Africa (once the British got it set up and going). Not Egypt, even when the Brits finance Mohammed Ali to the hilt in the 1800’s – so money ain’t the solution.
Kid – I can tell you how to eat chicken feet. Grasp the foot on the leg and suck the whole thing off in one, fell swoop. Great in soup. I have some in my freezer now. 🙂
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Baysider, Botswana. Really? Thanks.
Oh, I watch Mad eating the chicken feet. Seasoned very well and take a chunk with the chopsticks and insert into mouth, suck off the soft tissue and expel the bone. Even if it tastes good, it is Way too much work for me for the reward. 🙂
I favor the shumai, football, taro puff, deep fried shrimp ball, bean curd meat roll, shark fin dumpling.
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Chicken feet? Really? Do you know where that chicken has been?
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Kid, I think I told you my Chinese Chris brought me a bunch of little takeout boxes frequently and one time I innocently opened a box expecting dim sum types of food, as usual, and there were four chicken feet….I about screamed!
I think they’re a LOT of work because there’s hardly any meat on them at all.
Baysider, but S Africa is a cesspool of crime…I was great friends with “Chief Daniels” on “Hill St Blues” who did shows in S Africa..before apartheid, it was TOTALLY safe, clean…he said that, afterwards, they had to watch every step of the day and night if the cast from a show was outside..hideously dangerous..
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Kid, Gimme brisket.
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ED, Fukushima Free Brisket..
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Z,
AOW…you can’t imagine the stress I felt typing that and then pushing “post comment”
See? That’s how badly we’ve all been stewed in the marinade of political correctness!
I’m certain that our Founders would despise political correctness.
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