“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.” – Mark Twain

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.” – Samuel Adams

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.” – Edward R. Murrow

Amen! Have an awesome Independence Day, John, G, T, et al. And you, too, Anonymous. :)

Happy Independence Day.

“It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.”
– Henry David Thoreau

"O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"
The Star-Spangled Banner, 4th Stanza

Speech on the Occasion of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

Calvin Coolidge
July 5, 1926
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=41

Excerpt:

"About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers."

Great one, Dr. Bob.

I'd like to dedicate this next one--another Calvin Coolidge hit--to Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, & Harry Reid--& I'd also like to give a special shout out to "my peeps" Mark Warner, Jim Reid, & Tom Perriello (GACK!):

“The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge; it is always simple and direct.” – Calvin Coolidge

"We'll have to pass it so we can find out what's in it"... "No secretive midnight sessions or dirty backroom deals to push legislation through"... "The most open & transparent administration in history"... B.S.!!!

so informative, thanks to tell us.