Happy Independence Day, everybody.
As a special tribute, I thought I'd give you guys a nice video diary with some patriotic quotes from great American leaders.
Despite what the idiotic right-wingers will tell you, we're all patriots. We wouldn't be here if we weren't. Everyday we do our best to fight for what's right for our country, to stand up for every American, including the poor, oppressed, and disenfranchised. We believe that liberty and justice do stand for all and not just for the rich and well connected.
So despite whatever complaints we have about the status quo, we're all fighting to make America better. Keep fighting and one day we'll win.
Enjoy the videos and the quotes.
"Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it."-John Quincy Adams
"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 identify the flag with almost everything we hold dear on earth, peace, security, liberty, our family, our friends, our home. . .But when we look at our flag and behold it emblazoned with all our rights we must remember that it is equally a symbol of our duties. Every glory that we associate with it is the result of duty done."-Calvin Coolidge
"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."-Elmer Davis
"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober."-G.K. Chesterton
"A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works."-Bill Vaughn
"Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea."-John Gunther
"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. But not only that: Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi."-Martin Luther King Jr.
"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."-Adlai Stevenson
"Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world."
"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, For then it costs nothing to be a patriot."-Mark Twain
"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."-Edward Abbey
I hope you guys have a fun and exciting Independence Day.