Happy 232nd Birthday, America
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James Joyner | Friday, July 4, 2008 |
Happy Independence Day!
I don’t know about my OTB colleagues but I’ll be taking the rest of the day off, honoring the sacrifices made by the Founders by sitting around watching television, grilling and consuming meat products, and drinking beer with family and friends.
Some things to keep you occupied until my return:
- “Putting The Country First” - John McCain’s essay for Parade magazine.* A lot of highfalutin sentiment but the most important point is this: “Today, politics is derided for its self-interest, combativeness, duplicity, and triviality. But such failings are not unique to our age. Both Adams and Jefferson lamented them in their own time. But that’s the great beauty of our form of government, which they helped to create; it accounts for the vices of human nature as much as it hopes for our virtues.”
- “Declaration of Independence: A Fisking” - Two years ago, I published this tongue-in-cheek essay on the premise of reacting to the document as if I were there on that historic day greeted with the document for the first time. It still stands up pretty well, I think, at least if you’ve been reading blogs for a number of years and are familiar with the various tropes and rhetorical devices which have developed in the medium. A couple of the references, notably George III as “the decider,” will become obscured over time.
- Jimi Hendrix, Star Spangled Banner - Jeralyn Merritt has the famous video from Woodstock.
If you’ve got a 4th of July post at your place, feel free to send a trackback and link to it.
_________________
*I looked for a message from Barack Obama on his website and the only thing I found was a fundraising pitch titled “Donate to Declare Your Independence.”
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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