Gerald Maclennon's Blog - Posts Tagged "democrats"
President Trump's Independence Day Address 2019
In 2011, during the Obama administration, the United States spent more on its military than the next 13 nations combined. That's why the current president can proudly boast, on the 4th of July of 2019 that, "Our nation is stronger today than it ever was before."
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941, Admiral Yamamoto is quoted as saying, "I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." They sure as hell did!
The United States maintained that resolve from 1941 to 1945, and thereafter. We, as a country, even chose the US Army's Supreme Allied Commander of WWII Europe to be the American President during this nation's most prosperous decade (1950s).
This year, before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, Mr. Trump inserted himself into the Independence Day celebrations. His multitude of critics protested that such an act was virtually unprecedented. Talk about being history-challenged... the Donald is not the first U.S. president to give a major speech on the Fourth of July. Harry S. Truman once delivered an Independence Day address in front of the Washington monument. Presidents Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all gave Fourth of July addresses from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. And, in 1986, Ronald Reagan delivered a Fourth of July address from the deck of aircraft carrier, USS John F. Kennedy, strategically placed in front of the Statue of Liberty.
It would do you well as critics to listen to the president's entire speeches. The one he delivered Thursday at the Nation's Independence Day Celebration was very well written by the prez and his team. It wasn't about party politics, nor illegal border crossing, nor abortion... it was first and foremost about the US Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) of which he happens to be the Constitutionally-mandated Commander-in-Chief. Mr. Trump highlighted each branch of service, his praise punctuated by flyovers from aircraft of that particular branch. It was well and right that he should do so.
It sure makes me, a Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, proud to be an American. (Makes me feel sad for the rest -- sorry, Carly) In my oath of enlistment, I swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As far as I'm concerned that oath I made in 1964 has never expired... it will expire when I expire.
Section IV, Article IV of that Constitution states: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and ... domestic Violence.
Speaking of borders and invasions, when Abraham Lincoln said “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” he wasn’t talking about the kind of political divisions we see today. Americans may differ sharply on issues but there is no single issue in 2019 that geographically and economically divides the country in the same way that slavery did in the 1850s. Back then, the U.S. was so divided that many feared it would break out in civil war.
Lincoln’s now-famous “house divided” line, which are the words of Jesus from New Testament Gospels, were actually part of a speech Lincoln delivered at the 1858 Illinois Republican State Convention after winning nomination to run for U.S. Senate against Stephen A. Douglas -- a race, by the way, that Lincoln lost... (Just checking the facts, ma'am).
The fear of impending civil war became reality when Lincoln was elected president in 1860. It was kind of like when Trump was elected: the whole country went bananas. Soon after Lincoln took the oath of president of the USA, Southern states began seceding from the Union, forming their own nation called the Confederate States of America. They made Jefferson Davis, former US Senator and US Secretary of War, their president.
At that time Democrats were the party of the slave-holding South and Republicans were the party of the Free North that opposed slavery’s expansion. Yup, Democrats were lambasting Republicans back then, too (and vice versa)... not just with heated words (and na na nanky-poos) but with rifles, pistols, bayonets, cannons and swords. Brother against brother, cousin against cousin, it was a horrendous slaughter; a terrible waste of human beings. I hope and pray we never come to that again.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941, Admiral Yamamoto is quoted as saying, "I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." They sure as hell did!
The United States maintained that resolve from 1941 to 1945, and thereafter. We, as a country, even chose the US Army's Supreme Allied Commander of WWII Europe to be the American President during this nation's most prosperous decade (1950s).
This year, before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, Mr. Trump inserted himself into the Independence Day celebrations. His multitude of critics protested that such an act was virtually unprecedented. Talk about being history-challenged... the Donald is not the first U.S. president to give a major speech on the Fourth of July. Harry S. Truman once delivered an Independence Day address in front of the Washington monument. Presidents Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all gave Fourth of July addresses from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. And, in 1986, Ronald Reagan delivered a Fourth of July address from the deck of aircraft carrier, USS John F. Kennedy, strategically placed in front of the Statue of Liberty.
It would do you well as critics to listen to the president's entire speeches. The one he delivered Thursday at the Nation's Independence Day Celebration was very well written by the prez and his team. It wasn't about party politics, nor illegal border crossing, nor abortion... it was first and foremost about the US Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) of which he happens to be the Constitutionally-mandated Commander-in-Chief. Mr. Trump highlighted each branch of service, his praise punctuated by flyovers from aircraft of that particular branch. It was well and right that he should do so.
It sure makes me, a Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, proud to be an American. (Makes me feel sad for the rest -- sorry, Carly) In my oath of enlistment, I swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As far as I'm concerned that oath I made in 1964 has never expired... it will expire when I expire.
Section IV, Article IV of that Constitution states: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and ... domestic Violence.
Speaking of borders and invasions, when Abraham Lincoln said “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” he wasn’t talking about the kind of political divisions we see today. Americans may differ sharply on issues but there is no single issue in 2019 that geographically and economically divides the country in the same way that slavery did in the 1850s. Back then, the U.S. was so divided that many feared it would break out in civil war.
Lincoln’s now-famous “house divided” line, which are the words of Jesus from New Testament Gospels, were actually part of a speech Lincoln delivered at the 1858 Illinois Republican State Convention after winning nomination to run for U.S. Senate against Stephen A. Douglas -- a race, by the way, that Lincoln lost... (Just checking the facts, ma'am).
The fear of impending civil war became reality when Lincoln was elected president in 1860. It was kind of like when Trump was elected: the whole country went bananas. Soon after Lincoln took the oath of president of the USA, Southern states began seceding from the Union, forming their own nation called the Confederate States of America. They made Jefferson Davis, former US Senator and US Secretary of War, their president.
At that time Democrats were the party of the slave-holding South and Republicans were the party of the Free North that opposed slavery’s expansion. Yup, Democrats were lambasting Republicans back then, too (and vice versa)... not just with heated words (and na na nanky-poos) but with rifles, pistols, bayonets, cannons and swords. Brother against brother, cousin against cousin, it was a horrendous slaughter; a terrible waste of human beings. I hope and pray we never come to that again.
