Happy July 4th

Some fine Americans, supporting other fine Americans:



And now, a word from our sponsors - the men instrumental in giving us this country and winning our freedom and liberty:

"[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
-- James Madison

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence."
-- George Washington

"The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals."
-- James Monroe

"Arms... discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. ... Horrid mischief would ensue were [the law-abiding] deprived the use of them."
-- Thomas Paine

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-- George Washington

"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ... "
--Samuel Adams

"Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
--Tenche Coxe

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
-- Alexander Hamilton

"Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
--Richard Henry Lee

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the means and spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
-- Patrick Henry

"“Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised...to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually."
-- George Mason

"Whereas civil-rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
-- Tench Coxe

"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone ..."
-- Patrick Henry

"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."
-- Zacharia Johnson

We are able to celebrate the Fourth of July today because these men and their contemporaries were as well armed with their private weapons as the soldiers who would have subjugated them and their families. The Constitution and Bill of Rights they gave us was not fathered in a university, a church, or by royalty, but instead by a privately armed citizenry of free men. Our constitutional documents were born and won through the use of their personal weapons. Their thirst for freedom and for a country where individual liberty was paramount won us the freedom we enjoy today - not through words, but the willingness to use a weapon to fight and protect that freedom when reason failed.

Celebrate the rights and freedoms you are privileged to enjoy today, in peace and freedom - every one of them, in their entirety. But never forget how they were won, and what ultimately guarantees those unalienable rights.

The Framers now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Have a great 4th everyone - Montana will be noisy tonight! Our firecrackers tonight will be of the 5.56 variety, and then I think we'll have a little viewing of the Lt Dan Band to support the troops