One of the great ironies of the Trump-a-palooza

[dflprincess]

is that the Founders did not want a large standing army.

I doubt Trump has any understanding of why we celebrate the 4th, what led to it, or what risks were taken for it.

The last line of the Declaration of Independence reads

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor".

This is my favorite line of the document and the one that makes a chill run down my spine.

Had Trump been around in 1776 he would probably have called the signers "losers" for taking such chances and making such a pledge. All the while he'd be sucking up to George III.

[leftieNanner]

1. Our city celebration includes

A reading of the entire Declaration. It's quite a remarkable document. One of my favorite parts of a fully awesome day!

[dflprincess]

2. That is so cool

and I don't think it's done many places.

[leftieNanner]

3. I live in Ashland Oregon

And there are wonderful actors here (Oregon Shakespeare Festival is here) and it's often one of them.

[dflprincess]

4. My cousin & her husband go out to the Shakespeare Festival every year

one of their daughters lives in Washington (state) and the other near San Francisco and they all meet up in Ashland.

[kanda]

5. love the parade

I've been in Ashland for the 4th of July parade. Love it! Maybe it's nostalgia for me, but it makes me think of Norman Rockwell paintings.

[Xolodno]

6. For a good reason. They saw what was happening to the British Empire.

Maintaining a large army means maintaining a large tax extract. If I remember correctly, the Colonies were willing to pay for the war with the French...just on their own terms. They felt like they weren't just paying for that, but wars in Europe, Africa and Asia. Thus feeding a war machine when they didn't want to.

Although there were territorial aspirations west ward, that hardly required a major standing army. We didn't go down the road to imperialism until the Spanish-American War when we basically took what was left of Spain's territories...which was a an empire in severe decline.