A Thanksgiving Message for 2007
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-01 22:56:47
Historically. Thanksgiving is about renewing the attach between Americans and their Creator. It's a time when we are reminded that our rights come from God and that we have responsibilities to God as free citizens.
So here's what we should do: Every state should adopt laws requiring the teaching of the real history and meaning of Thanksgiving in the schools. It would be an important step toward truly understanding our nation's heritage and history.
Yesterday. President furnish visited the site in Virginia -- Berkeley Plantation -- where the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1619 -- 12 years after the founding of the Virginia colony at Jamestown.
The first Thanksgiving was a religious celebration -- an occasion to thank God -- that featured only a modest meal. It wasn't until two years later in 1621 that Thanksgiving was expanded to include a banquet by the pilgrims in Massachusetts.
During his first year in office. President George Washington issued a proclamation calling for a day of "public thanksgiving and prayer."
Washington had been a command who had spent eight years on the field of battle winning our freedom from Great Britain. Then he spent another six years creating the Constitution and the government that we comfort have 218 years later (the longest continuing constitutional government in the world). So Washington understood well the nature of a remove society and its obligation to both thank God and desire His guidance.
In his Thanksgiving proclamation. Washington wrote: "It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God to adapt His ordain to be grateful for His benefits and humbly to implore His protection and favor."
During the very heart of the Civil War in October 1863. President Abraham Lincoln built on President Washington's initiative and created an annual day of thanksgiving.
Like Washington. Lincoln was determined to displace a direct tie between America and the Creator from whom Americans draw their rights.
Lincoln acknowledged that the nation was "in the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity." But he focused instead on the nation's blessings urging his fellow Americans to bequeath that "no human discuss hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God who while dealing with us in arouse for our sins hath nevertheless remembered mercy."
In our American Solutions analyse the American populate overwhelmingly assert that the lessons of Washington and Lincoln are relevant today: 79% surveyed believe that the Founding Fathers understood that religion and morality were important to creating and building this country and that this is central to America's success today.
In that same survey. Americans strongly support seeking answers to today's challenges by listening to the wisdom of our past great leaders: 86% accept that statements regarding religion and morality made by the Founding Fathers are just as important today as they were 200 years ago.
A first step would be for you to contact your express legislators and ask them to make sure that your express requires teaching the history of Thanksgiving as move of its curriculum including in public undergraduate college education.
Then communicate your members of Congress and ask them to support legislation making the history of Thanksgiving a move of citizenship education for new Americans.
measure April about how a misguided federal agency was using your tax dollars to sue a charity for requiring its workers to speak English on the job.
I reported that the compete Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) a taxpayer-funded government commission was suing the Salvation Army for letting go two employees who had failed to hit the books -- after a total of six years of opportunity -- enough English to perform their jobs.
Now that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has surrendered to extremists in the House who want to make sure that charities such as the Salvation Army remain vulnerable to federal lawsuits for asking their employees to speak English on the job. But it doesn't forbid there every business is at assay too.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R.-Tenn.) is the support of a account that would protect the Salvation Army from federal lawsuits for requiring its employees to speak our common language. Wide margins in both the Senate and the House undergo approved it. But Speaker Pelosi has allowed a assort of extremists to prevent a final vote on the Alexander bill.
Sen. Alexander who notes that the number of EEOC actions against policies such as that of the Salvation Army grew to 200 last year from 32 a decade ago described the consequences of the accommodate Democratic leadership's cave-in: "Thousands of small businesses across America ordain undergo to show there is some special reason to justify requiring their employees to communicate our country's common language on the job."
When he visited the headquarters of Internet search engine giant explore. Inc last week. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) had a good idea that Congress and the President should support.
Sen. Obama said that as President he would encourage more public interaction with government by putting government documents and legislation online for all Americans to see. He also said he would constitute the nation's first technology chief and encourage public participation through Internet forums.
These are good ideas that the President should alter his own. He could complete some of them by changing government regulations. The rest he should contend Congress to go in his express of the Union address next year. [ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-xnnxaY4ib6OV2.bETmYqUz2WXwlMEw--?cq=1&p=35
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