November 11, 2004
veterans day
happy veterans day to all of my veteran friends. this is the day to remember that we are the ones with the courage to fight for, and die for, our country. many of our brothers and sisters have given their lives while wearing the uniform. goddess bless them all. and to those of you out there who may have forgotten, remember that we are the ones that protect your asses.
Veterans Day Message from
The Honorable Anthony J. Principi
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
November 11, 2004
Have you thanked a veteran today?
We are blessed, as Americans, to live in a nation gifted with rights and freedoms envied the world over. Those rights and freedoms did not come cheaply. Have you thanked a veteran today?
We are the beneficiaries of a struggle for independence from which we emerged as a nation of many States joined together as one shining Republic. Have you thanked a veteran today?
We rise every morning empowered by a land of opportunities made rich and plentiful by a vigorous and open economic, agricultural, and industrial marketplace. We enjoy a bounty of goods and services unmatched in the entire world. Have you thanked a veteran today?
We expand our knowledge of ourselves and the world around us in myriad kindergartens, elementary, middle, and high schools, and institutions of higher learning unparalleled in their accessibility to virtually every citizen who seeks the keys to education. Have you thanked a veteran today?
As we have just demonstrated to the world, Americans choose the men and women who represent us in our local, state, and national governments, from county commissioners to the President. And any of us who seek office, or who have an opinion about those who do, are encouraged and welcome to take to the floor of the political arena, small or great, defining the very essence of our unique, and enduring, Democracy. Have you thanked a veteran today?
We constantly refill and express our creative spirits in countless libraries, theaters, auditoriums, museums, and galleries wherein our literary, performing, and visual arts are displayed in all their variety, uncensored, and open to all. Have you thanked a veteran today?
We clash on the gridirons of ten thousand stadiums; we shoot for the hoops on countless inner-city courts and in mighty arenas; we swing for the fences of small town diamonds and the walls of major league ball parks; we run, we swim, we play, we exert ourselves individually and competitively in a nation where we are free as men and women and boys and girls to celebrate the independent spirit of athletics. Have you thanked a veteran today?
And we bow our heads, kneel on prayer rugs, and lift our voices in holy songs in mighty cathedrals, elegant churches, simple chapels, and in synagogues and mosques all across our nation, secure in the knowledge that our beliefs are sacred and our right to worship in our own way, or not to worship at all, is revered and protected. Have you thanked a veteran today?
At day's end, we sit down to dinner, in communities large and small, and share with our neighbors the immutable constancy of our freedom to raise our families under liberty's open skies, and to fall asleep beneath the comforting blankets of our democracy. Have you thanked a veteran today?
Today, Veterans Day, 2004, let us seize this opportunity and offer our heartfelt "thank you" to America's former soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coastguardsmen. For 228 years, they protected the rich and seamless fabric of Freedom woven on the loom of conflict, washed in the blood of patriots, and preserved in times of peace through their fidelity in service to the cause of Liberty.
Forty-eight million of our fellow citizens earned our gratitude by donning our nation's uniform. They are our ancestors laid down in their eternal resting places. They are the Greatest Generation. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, our neighbors, and our countrymen across the nation. They are our warriors still missing in action, and they are our former Prisoners of War finally released to Liberty�s loving arms. And they are our armed forces on the front lines of Freedom half a world away.
On this Veterans Day, we thank them all.
for more veterans day stuff, go here.
November 02, 2004
the man speaks
go read george washington's farwell address to the nation. it is amazing. and he fortold what the political parties would and have done to our people.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
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There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.
November 01, 2004
my moment in the sun
today at my college there was a protest rally. basically it was the republicans protesting the democrats and the democrats protesting the republicans. instead of joining in the great protest circle jerk, i gave this speech:
I have a phrase to share with you.
United we stand, divided we fall.
And in case you haven�t been paying attention,
We are divided!
I am sick and tired of hearing Americans
question the patriotism of other Americans.
I am sick and tired of Republicans
calling Democrats communists and faggots.
And I am sick and tired of Democrats
calling Republicans Nazis and Fascists.
WAKE UP AMERICA!
We are one people, united under one flag,
our strength comes from our diversity and our unity.
This is not a country of Republicans or Democrats.
This is a country of Americans.
Where the rich and the poor, black and white,
straight and gay, Christian and non-Christian can live together.
We have let the extreme ends of the political
spectrum hijack our national dialogue.
The political parties exist to perpetuate themselves.
They thrive off our division, and it is ripping us apart.
It doesn�t matter which asshole gets elected tomorrow.
Half of you will spend all your time and energy
making sure the other half gets nothing done.
Our politicians have failed us, our media has failed us,
and we are failing America
when neighbors hate each other because of who they
want to vote for. We are in trouble!
How can we spread the dream of Democracy around the world
when we can�t even make it work here?
Our election process is a disaster. Our country is divided.
What are we showing the world, what are we teaching our children?
Everyone here loves America. Everyone here is fighting
for what they believe is best.
We are all in this together!
You want to support our troops? Give them a country
worth fighting and sacrificing for.
Give them a country worth coming home to
that is not at war with itself!
We are one people, united under one flag or we are nothing!
God help us all if this is the best we can do!
i gave this speech because i still believe in this country. i thank barack obama for the inspiration.