Happy Birthday America!

I Know it's late in the day, but better late then never huh?

This day marks the 130th year since the Declaration of Independence! Although the War of Independence was more complex then is widely known, or admitted, I acknowledge that the war defined a new and free collection of states that over a century was moulded into a great nation of Liberty!



(Above; America's first flag)

The United States began as an experiment, a losse union of sometimes hostile. jealous and quite powerful states, connected to each other through a very limited central government! The Confederation was replaced with a federation in 1789 and George Washington elected it's first President. This loose federation almost collapsed in the 1840s and 1860s, but came out the other end the nation we now know as America!

The American way, the American dream, may be corny and in the wrong hands trite cliches, but they hold a power never held by any nation or empire in the world's history! Rome had an ideology, but this was an ideology for the ruling classes of the ancient world, the British dream was a narrow, but noble one of civility and decency, rule of law and commerce, but again, this was the dream of the few. The American dream is unique in history as the only ideology that appeals to everyone. It is the promise of a decent life for every man and woman, a comfotable home, freedom to worship or not as you please, the freedom to speak up and say what you wish, the opportunity to follow your dreams, the hope of a better life for everyone, not only the Lord or the Baron or the Rajah or the industrialist. It is the dream to have a house in the suburbs, a wide screen TV a phone, indoor plumbing, plenty of food, decent educations, health care and the like. It is the opportunity to get rich, it is the opportunity to be a freak or to dream of being a leader, even when you are nothing!

That is the most powerful ideology the world has seen, and I beleive it has brought us the greatest good in history! Many of us would be peasants tied to the land, if not for this dream!

America's founding fathers have a part in all of this, and for that we should commemerate them and thank their memories!

Happy Birthday America!