And my posts in this thread are actually readable now. :-({|=

Nonstopdrivel;182775And my posts in this thread are actually readable now. :-({|=

However, they are still esoteric and incomprehensible to most....and perhaps that is a good thing.[wink]

Good read.

Good to think about this weekend.

One of the benefits of fixing all the old posts is I can bump good ones like this.

Nice dig-up.

The one 4th of july post that I still remember was Vikesrule's about Vietnam... Don't know if he'd like to have it dug up again, since he doesn't frequent this site a whole lot anymore, but that one made a real, sincere impact.

I was intentionally out of the States on Independence day.
I wanted to get a new perspective on it.
(Ok I was only in Canada but the area I was in had people from a dozen countries or more.)

Turns out that I got to Canada on July 1 which is Canada Day.
Their birthday.
Britain combined 3 colonies into one in 1867 but still governed them.
It took until 1982 before they were completely independent. Rather interesting.
We celebrate the birth of our nation and our independence from England via war. They celebrate a bureaucratic paper shuffling transaction and are just as proud.


They had fireworks on both days but since it is a tourist area I think it was more of a marketing idea than a tip of the cap to the ol US of A.

Individually I think
lot of Canadians do appreciate what the United States has done over the past 200 plus years.
They know that they have benefited by living so close to Big Brother without having to pay very much for it.
In that respect freedom is free for them.

I like the original article/post - naturally I would hahahaha.

Those numbers for deaths from other causes are just staggering. I remember 5 or 6 years ago when I was posting in JSOnline, I would post some stats like that to rub it in to the anti-war types - using a bunch of math to demonstrate that an American between age 18 and 24 was less likely to die in Iraq than here at home, and you consider the murder rate in the big cities, and it wasn't even close.

On Memorial Day, though, that is not the point. A lot of people (I have to get used to saying people, not just guys hahaha) did die there, and whether the detractors like to admit it or not, the sacrifices they made were and are for our FREEDOM, not to mention our Comfort, Prosperity, and Security. The detractors also like to use the phrase "die for nothing". FREEDOM and the other three items are NOT nothing. You could make a far better argument that the 423,000 who died those for years were the ones who "died for nothing" - and I assume THAT death rate has continued in the five years since the post.

It still amazes me to read what was risked and lost for our freedom. First post is still a goodie.

The Iraq/Afghan war isn't about freedom, it is about money, moreover, a fleecing of the average Joe taxpayer to the bank accounts of the shareholders of the manufactuers of arms to the War Machine.
Nobody questions the sacrifices made by our soldiers.
Everybody should be questioning the war monger politicians who keep sending them to battle, but don't send their own children.