The Longest Independence Day

By Douglas V. Gibbs

I remember as a child when along the 91 Freeway on a spillway of a dam near Corona was being painted with a huge mural that stated, "200 years of Freedom, 1776 - 1976."

The Bicentennial was coming, and I anticipated July 4th more than anything.

As a kid, history was one of my favorite things. I loved reading about the men who placed their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor at risk so that they could deliver freedom to the masses in the form of a government like no other.

July 4, 1976 was something spectacular. The colors seemed a little brighter, the sparklers a little more sparkley, and the fireworks show was just a little bit longer. My heart thumped with each explosion, and tears ran down my cheeks.

Even at the tender age of ten I loved my nation dearly.

Vietnam had recently become a thing of the past, and America was going to be voting for a new president in November. Hope sprang eternal. Things were tough, gas lines were long, and folks had been tightening their belts, but it seemed to people that the light at the end of the tunnel had been lighted.

The fears were primarily economic, but nothing like today. With the approach of Independence Day, 2010, this is the first time I truly feel like our liberty is under great stress. We have fought foreign enemies, and we have won, but now the enemy is within, and they threaten to change our American form of government forever.

The nation is struggling with unbelievable debt, and the current administration wants to spend more. War is being fought overseas, and one of those wars (Afghanistan) is in a region that has never been won. . . by anyone. The federal government is performing a hostile takeover of the free market, and threatens to control the private sector in a fascist system style. I can't even find anybody on the street that can remember the first three words of the U.S. Constitution. I ask often, and I nearly never receive the appropriate response.

We The People.

We are the key, and we refuse to act as such. Those that came before us made the hard choices, and fought to give us our liberty. We have tossed it aside, refusing to work for our freedom. And it saddens me.

But as Independence Day commences, I am reminded that this is America. Americans can overcome the impossible because that is what we do. I believe the hard working Americans that will be standing in a park, or a school, or wherever they are tonight, will allow those fireworks to dig deep into their soul. Memory will be ignited. The love of our great nation will rise up. Americans, as they already have been at Tea Party events, will raise their hands in the air (perhaps not literally, but you know what I mean) and cry out, "Enough is enough!"

July 5th will be the day to consider what we felt on the fourth. Americans refuse to accept the destruction of the spirit of America through the idiocy of the little man-child that is in the White House, and refuse to accept the socialist ideals the Democrats of Congress are trying to ram down our throats.

July 6th, the burn for liberty will increase, and the words of the Constitution will call out to Americans.

And Independence Day will not stop. Each day after the fourth will be another Independence Day, eventually culminating on a cold autumn morning in November, when we vote the bastards out, with a statement that says "We reject big government! We reject socialism! We are unwilling to trade our freedoms for the hollow promises of power hungry politicians that say they can make our lives better at the expense of other Americans!"

Principles, not a great circus act in front of a teleprompter, will guide our hands at the ballot box. And Election Day will become Independence Day - making this years 4th of July celebration the longest in history.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary