Pretty wistful birthday card from JHKunstler too

http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/07/birthday-card.html

Another nod to Thomas Jefferson:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/04/davis.jefferson.other.words/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Something he wrote in 1802 when he was president:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State ... "

Here's to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without interference.

And Jack, if you keep the masses dumbed down enough, they will consent to anything. It's rather sobering that 40% of US citizens under 30 don't know which country we declared independence from:

http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/misc/usapolls/US100617/July%204th_summer%20vacation/Country_From_Which_US_Declared_Independence.htm

America as an idea is the best. That phrase "the consent of the governed" is the biggest breath of fresh air in world history. It concedes there has to be a government, yet it spells out who is in charge.

I know what Allen Ginsburg was trying to say in that link, and I read the occasional story about the hypocrisy or the gap between the words and the reality, even with the Founding Fathers, but that's not directed to what America really is: An idea. Once you see that, it comes down to how close each generation sticks to it, or how far we let the idea slip away.

The thing that we don't emphasize enough is that the idea behind America produces the best results. The closer we come to it, the better off we are. I'm not talking about ideals here - more like workable concepts. This is a blueprint for success and the reason we're struggling right now is that we have stopped following it.

Authoritarian presidents and a Congress that doesn't represent the American People, is a very bad plan and it's no shock that it's producing very poor results. It was inevitable that it wouldn't turn out right, and it hasn't. The Bush/Cheney approach was a full-scale assault on the idea of America, and the great correction that President Obama was supposed to represent, has turned into more of the same.

The document didn't say "the consent of Wall Street" or the "consent of the Federal Reserve." It certainly didn't say a president can attack any country on earth based on his or her own personal whims - or the whims of some shadow elite trying to seize more wealth.

We are currently attacking 6 different countries. The governed did not consent to attacking Libya, and we certainly don't appreciate being told we aren't really there when we are flying hundreds of missions a week. The leaders who survived the carefully constructed lies of Iraq, have given way to leaders who don't even care how insulting the lies are to our intelligence. It doesn't seem to matter anymore. The American People are now officially out of the loop.

I used to kid that Bush and Cheney were lying so much about Iraq that they should just deny we're there at all and get it over with. A few years later, and the joke has become reality. We're fighting a war in Libya, and the President is saying, "War? What war?"

If you had to find the phrase that most resembles what's going on now would you say this country has been acting under the consent of the governed, or are we closer to being run by a despot? Too much for you? Okay, call it the equally scary, "authoritarian rule". In 50 years we've gone back to a system where basically whatever our leader wants to do, is the law. That is dangerous because then you get into the idea of who's running the President?

Wait, don't even bother thinking about that. Just use the easiest test: If the idea of America produces the best results, then why are things going so badly? Is it because we're not following the plan? As long as we're celebrating the idea today, why not get back to using it as a form of government? I'm tired of the way it's going. How can we pursue some happiness when everything is so screwed up?

Bill you should publish that piece and I don't mean here. Find a bigger audience for it.

Bill, seven, if you count the occasional forays in Pakistan. But you've put it quite well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukURt2TsEwY&feature=player_embedded

Best wishes to all on this 235th anniversary.

A quote from a prescient B Franklin: "... as all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing & governed: the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the Princes, or enslaving of the people. Generally indeed the ruling power carries its point, the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever ..."

You better get it straight, darlin':

Poor man wanna be rich,
Rich man wanna be king,
And a king ain't satisfied
'Til he rules everything

Huzzah, Bill!

And don't forget the "Patriot Act" and those secret FISA courts, either.

Another outstanding quote from The Declaration:

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

The principle applies to a congress of princes & princesses (and their royal corporate *persons*), too.

Musical interlude ~~~

Simon & Garfunkel ~ America
Live in Central Park, NYC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCbOEZ8c8dM

Bill / Max

Just curious about your six wars / seven wars.

I count:

Afghanistan
Iraq
Pakistan
Yemen
Somalia
Libya

You guys have a different count.

Whats yours?

I had it at 6 too. Of course, it's early in the week.

http://instantrimshot.com/