Special Bulletin. The 4th of July (and Goodbye for a Brief Departure)

We are about to leave on a trip overseas and, with holiday and travel preparations, there has been no time to write anything adequate to the 4^th of July in 2016. Rather than letting the day pass without comment, however, we looked for some relevant observations by wiser and more eloquent figures. Some of our favorites appear below: many were written in times that were also challenging, but they all express sentiments that we share.

We will, perhaps mercifully, be away during the Republican Convention but we are confident that the Republic will survive that event. If the election in November is another matter, we will turn to that when we return, and we expect that RINOcracy.com will reappear in late July or early August.

Best wishes to all for a joyous 4^th and as relaxing a summer as possible.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.  – Thomas Paine

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself. – Thomas Paine

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.  – Elmer Davis

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. – Erma Bombeck

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. – Louis D. Brandeis

America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact – the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality. – Adlai Stevenson

If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace. – Hamilton Fish

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. – William Faulkner

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! – Thomas Jefferson

What is the essence of America?  Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom “to” and freedom “from.” – Marilyn vos Savant

America is a tune.  It must be sung together. – Gerald Stanley Lee

I believe in America because we have great dreams, and because we have the opportunity to make those dreams come true. – Wendell L. Wilkie

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.  – Abraham Lincoln

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. – Martin Luther King Jr.

We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. –  Robert J. McCracken

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.         – James Madison

Liberty is the breath of life to nations. – George Bernard Shaw