So much has happened to us over the last ten years.

As individuals, we have seen our children grow up; we have mourned losses; we have celebrated new lives created; we have witnessed changes in careers and we have weathered financial turmoil.

As a country, we have mourned, we have witnessed war, we have celebrated freedom and we have reengineered our economy.

Yet, we survived as a country, as individuals and as Americans.

This morning, at a 9-11 Memoriam Service, my friend, Councilman James Darcy, spoke of the hole in our country’s heart. Councilman Darcy was correct. There is no surgical procedure to mend this hole.

This hole will be forever more. It will be a permanent scar in what it means to be an American. It will be a memorial in our collective consciousness to the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

It will also be a memorial to the morning of September 12, 2001 and beyond.

For America emerged, scarred, battered and bruised. America rose to vanquish her enemies and to give solace to its people as we mourn her dead.

Ten years ago, we fled from devastation only to witness the march of our firefighters and police officers into harm’s way.

Today, thousands march to Ground zero to witness a testament to America.

Our enemies knocked down our buildings and killed our brothers, sisters, children and parents. Our enemies thought they won.

They lost.

They will always lose.

Because the Twin Towers of America are not brick and mortar. The Twin Towers are not buildings.

The Twin Towers are the phrase “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave”.

No plane, no bomb, no weapon can take that away.

We must remain vigilant. We must protect our own, crush our enemies and continue to give the world democracy.

We must see the shadows of the buildings that were leveled as these shadows serve to remind us of the presence of our enemies.

Yet we must not allow, we must not permit, we must not accept the pall of these shadows on the spirit of the American people.

As a people, as a nation and as citizens of the country who brought democracy to the civilized world, we have one simple obligation.

That is to honor our dead by never forgetting that we are, and always will be, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

We are the United States of America.

No one can take that away.

We're Americans, with a capital 'A', huh? You know what that means? Do ya? John Winger, as played by Bill Murray in Stripes

Do we really know what that means?

We are one nation, one people, one country united not by ethnic race, not by religious creed nor by the color of our skin.

We are united by the principles recognized in the Declaration of Independence and protected by our Constitution.

We are under attack. Our most feared enemies are the sick, depraved and evil terrorists of the world. Unfortunately, they are not our most potent enemy.

We are our own worst enemy. We cannot combat this enemy with our military.

We have become a nation that doesn't build, doesn't produce and doesn't manufacture. We have become a nation whose very survival depends on governmental largesse and not the sweat of our brow. We have been raised in a culture that redefines governmental benefits as a Natural Right.

America, we are not guaranteed anything except for the freedom to seek prosperity, to worship the god of our choice and to raise our families without dictate from our government.

Beyond that, we must produce to earn; we must build to prosper and we must work for our future.

America was, is and always can be a land of opportunity. That hasn't changed. What has changed is that "opportunity" has been redefined.

Let us take the recent credit downgrade to heart. Let it be a warning sign of over extending ourselves.

More importantly, let it be a rallying cry for us to return to work, invest our sweat equity and restore this country to its rightful status as the leader of the wrold's economy, the guardian of the world's democracy and the garden for the wrold's propserity.

We should be a Nation of Builders and not a nation of worriers and complainers.

We are America.

We are second to none.

Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids . . . . . . . . . .

I wonder about the world my kids live in.

Their world is bounded by play dates, time outs, x boxes and text messages. Where are the bike rides, the nights in your room without dinner, the soup cans connected to a string and the “Mom, I’m going to Michael’s house”? I understand that our children need to be protected from predators and all sorts of very bad, evil people. I also understand that technology has made communication easier, quicker and not dependent on the now arcane shared use of the family telephone.

I get all that.

I also get that my kids are more isolated, less active and less engaged than we were.

It is not government’s function to supplant its judgment for that of parents and caregivers.

But it is government’s responsibility to give our children the opportunity to play, learn and grow in a world that is safe, nurturing and free. Every elected official has the obligation to find ways to make that world vision a reality without imposing crushing taxes on the people struggling to make ends meet. Every elected official has the mandate to provide jobs and economic hope so that our children’s diplomas are used to assure success and not just hung on a wall. Every elected official has the directive to work, night and day to do all they can to make this world better, safer and liberated for our children. Together, working with the private sector, government must think, try, work and work some more to fulfill these responsibilities.

Then, and only then, will our children have a fighting chance.

It better not be a long, long time. We don’t have that luxury.

On the Declaration

The Declaration of Independence is exactly that. A declaration to a candid world that America is independent. Thomas Jefferson and the other draftsmen felt it necessary, prudent, decent and dignified to state the reasons why America was breaking away from the Kingdom of Great Britain:

The first sentence recognizes the severity of dissolving the political union and provides the impetus for the Declaration:

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.

Next, it is stated that Governments are formed to protect the rights of man that are vested by virtue of natural law:

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,

When Government stops securing the enumerated rights of man, the governed people have the right, and maybe the duty, to alter, abolish and form new governments:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The right of the people to so change governments is a right that should be exercised with caution and only in extreme circumstances:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are 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 evinces 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.

The colonies were victims of circumstances that rose to the level that prudence would dictate that Government should be changed:

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.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.

In two sentences, America then declares its Independence:

We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

The signers then pledge their loyalty to the cause and to each other.

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.

We, the generations unknown to Thomas Jefferson, are the beneficiaries of this document and the courage of all our Founding Fathers.

Happy Birthday, America.

I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man
because he was disappointed in the monkey

Mark Twain

As summer fast approaches, I think about one of the major contributions to the decline, fall and demise of being a good neighbor.

Central Air Conditioning.

How often do we take the time to stop as we make the long journey from the car door to our front door?

How often do we sit on our front porches, on our stoops or in our front yards?

How often do we join the people who occupy the houses on our right and our left and watch the sun go down?

Never.

We don’t.

Not at All.

Because we are too busy running inside to dead bolt our front door behind us as we indulge in air conditioned rooms and reruns of the Desperate Housewives of Bucksnort Tennessee.

As we spend more time poring over the screens of our I phones, Blackberries and I pads, we spend less time talking, shaking hands and just getting to know each other.

The more we connect through technology the farther we grow apart as people.

We are not a Facebook Page, a Tweet or an Avatar.

We are emotional, unpredictable, creative and strong human beings that can’t be digitized, replicated or copied.

For those as you who know me, I’m as guilty as anyone. I live in a sea of emails and instant messages.

But I am trying.

I am trying to reconnect with my neighbors with a conversation and not a text message.

Trying to take the time to ask, “How are you?” and not just send “HAGD”.

More importantly, to listen to the answer and not be able to shut off the smart phone.

Most importantly, to really laugh with another person and not just send “LOL”.

This summer, let’s take some time to turn around on our way to our front door and watch the sunset.

Pretty soon the front porches of your neighbors may also be filled.

Mark Twain also said, “In discarding the monkey and substituting man, our Father in Heaven did the monkey an undeserved injustice”.

Let's prove him wrong.