These are contentious times for this great country. On the one hand, people that love it, think it is the greatest place on Earth, regardless of what other countries might have to offer. The rest of the confused people, think America is past its prime. Some people think it is time to remake this great country to pacify those that maybe have felt like they are on the outside. I was offended this week to hear that a singer Macy Gray thought it a good idea to change the flag. No, the red, white and blue represents us all. It has fifty stars for the fifty states and 13 stripes for the 13 original British colonies.
I think some people have forgotten where we came from. This country did not spring magically out of thin air. The United States started as a group of thirteen European colonies. They were under British law and so were taxed by them and controlled by their rule of law. America was "discovered" by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and that started a slow migration of European settlers, but it wasn't until 1776 that America came into being its own country when it fought and won the Revolutionary War against the British. This war broke out after the British tried to enforce their rule of law and imposed a series of taxes, which led ultimately to the Boston Tea Party, where a shipment of tea was dumped into the harbor. The impetus was that the Americans that dumped the tea were not going to pay taxes to a government that they were not represented in, thus the term "taxation without representation." This occurred in December 16, 1773 and was the fuse that lit the war.
If this had not happened, we might still be under the rule of Great Britain today, so those actions were indeed important. Once the thirteen colonies were established as their own country, the government started buying land until the size of the country reached from sea to shining sea. Detractors want to say that America was founded on the backs of the native indians and with the sweat of so many slaves and maybe this is a mark on the country, but the fact of the matter, this country has provided unimaginable opportunities and possibilities to the people that are lucky enough to find themselves living here. Because of the way this country's government was formed, by people like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton, we have more freedoms and rights than people in other countries. Yes, it took a while to make things right, and maybe they needed to, but today, in this country, men and women are equals and everyone has an equal chance to make something of themselves, if they put in the work.
I love this country, I can say I believe I am lucky for what I have, but all my luck has also been coincided with a ton of hard work on the part of Wife and myself. We have instilled the notion to our boys that you can have what you want, if you work hard, because although we say it is the land of the free, material things are not free.
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