SageSuggestions : 2009-06-21

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Moving Into A New Decade

A while ago my daughters and my sisters asked me to begin writing down my memories. In the case of my daughters they were interested in our lives as they grew up. My sisters wondered about the times I spent with our parents, especially our father, before they were old enough to begin to collect their own memories as I am the oldest sibling. I have thought about doing so but in reality have done very little.
Today, as I enter my 8th decade, delving into the past begins to seem more appropriate and takes on a stronger sense of urgency. I wonder now if this turning point was also on the minds of those who suggested this project in the first place. Certainly it would be worthwhile to share my memories with my family. People far more important or well known than I do so by writing their "Memoirs" and usually get paid as well. I don't anticipate anyone paying for mine and wonder how many people will actually read what I write.
I will use this space for some of this reflection because I am finding that searching one's mind for memories of the past calls up mental comparisons of "what was with what is". It would seem to be almost negligent not to share these reflections with anyone who might stumble on to my words.
Those of us who lived "back-in-the-day" are shirking our responsibilities by not sharing our principles, views, and experiences with those too young to remember what this country once was. We are not doing our jobs when we shrug and give up upon seeing "the eyes roll back in the head" and the look that says "here we go again"!
After all, we were lucky enough to learn about the history of our Country, good and bad, in school. Our family's part in it played out around the dining room table. Can you say the same about your children or grandchildren. It seems to me they are only learning the things about their country that someone with their own agenda wants them to learn.
Don't take my word for it, ask them some basic questions about their country and their rights. Be careful though, you might not like the answers!

The Declaration of Independence

When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Format of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying it's Foundations on such Principles, and organizing it's Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate the time Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes, and accordingly all Experiences hath shewn, that Mankind more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinced a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

(The specific grievances are listed as is the Declaration of breaking the connections with Great Britain.

56 patriots (YOUR FOREFATHERS) signed the Declaration of Independence knowing they would be accused of Treason against the Crown and condemned to Death if caught!

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THE DECLARATION ON LINE at: www.archives.gov>exhibits>charters

Gettysburg Address

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place--for those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate--we cannot concecrate--we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who have struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember, what we say here but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.
Abraham Lincoln

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Moving Into A New Decade

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