Happy 4th of July!

I don't know if there's anything more American than Jimmy Cagney tap-dancing to "Yankee Doodle" on the 4th of July.

Very Likely Not.





And here's something else to Cheer your Fourth: A link to the National Republican Committee asking about Why You Are Proud of your Country. Here's mine:

I am proud of my country because we can make mistakes here. And God knows, we've made some Lulu's over the years; but if there's something going on and it's wrong, we have the innate ability to see the wrong, make the change, and come out better for it.

Re-writing the Constitution from the Articles of Confederation. Paying Mexico after we seized the southwest in the Mexican war, even though we didn't have to do so. Repealing slavery, and making freed slaves full citizens with voting rights. The Civil Rights movement. Everything we learned from Vietnam that made Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, and Grenada so right.

In so many countries around the world "that's the way it's always been done" is a way of life, if not the Status Quo. In America we not only right the wrongs, we go beyond. We see the possibilities, and reach for the stars. No other nation has walked on the moon, or built an international space station that invites other nations to participate freely.

And no other nation forgives our enemies quite like we do. Rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. A Free South Korea and Japan. The whole Marshall Plan. Mexican reparations in the Gadsden purchase.

For everything "wrong" with America, there's ten things right nobody else in the world would even think of doing.

And here's another link to make you proud of our country if you haven't seen it already: Real American Stories.

Happy Fourth of July, wherever you might be today.

~~JD~~