My husband has a big beef about the phrase “Fourth of July.” He insists that we call it Independence Day. He points out that the holiday is not about a number, it’s about a concept. If we keep calling it by the number then we are more likely to forget what the holiday is about. I agree, but Independence Day just doesn’t roll off the tongue like “the Fourth” does.

(This is the park we celebrated at three years ago with my parents and sibs but for this year we met only my husband’s sister and her fam there. Since my brother wasn’t there we didn’t have the cool canoes like we did three years ago, but I like using old pictures. Besides, everyone is asleep so that translates into no teenage technical assistants around here and I still don’t have it figured out how to get pictures from my cell phone onto the computer all by myself. I took a bunch yesterday with my cell phone since my nicer camera is still on its way coming back to me after losing it. It’s pretty rare to have a park in Utah with a pond where you can canoe.)

We celebrated with the usual flag raising ceremony at our city’s amphitheater. I love going to these because the organizer is a conservative who used to be on the city council. She always has speakers that don’t just say feel good phrases, so you feel that you can pat yourself on the back for being an American. These speakers always say that our nation is in trouble and we should return to the principles in the Constitution.  Usually the organizer has a quiz about early American history and my family wins most of the prizes, since we are so knowledgeable about history. Homeschooling helps. The prizes are usually copies of the 5000 Year Leap. I guess she and her helpers heard we were coming again and didn’t want to give us any more prizes because they didn’t do the quiz this year. The speaker was someone I am unfamiliar with, a former state legislator from Kaysville. At this event in years past, I have enjoyed hearing Chuck Baldwin, who was a third party candidate for U.S. president, and Stephen Pratt. Hey, maybe they can get David Barton for next year. At my last Stephen Pratt sighting (see http://libertyandlearning.org) I found out that David Barton of http://wallbuilders.com fame is coming to my neck of the woods in September for Constitution Day. I am really excited about that!

My 15 year old daughter Virtue did her hair very prettily yesterday and miracle of miracles, she convinced her 5 year old sister Princessa, to let her do her hair and put a flower in it. Miracles never cease! I am so glad that we finally figured out that Virtue looks better without bangs. Maybe tomorrow I can get a photo up of them from the day.

While the rest of the family went to the city parade I stayed home, as usual, and made food for later in the day. After I did my daily Book of Mormon listening I tuned in to BYU’s radio station, Classical 89.  My husband’s sister called weeks ago and said they would be in town on Ind. Day. Then my family was getting together in the evening for a barbecue and fireworks. I was really stressing about having to fix two picnic meals. I finally called his sister the night before and said, let’s just eat at home before we meet later after lunch because this is overwhelming to think of two meals for me to pack and eat  six hours apart over an hour from my home.. She happily agreed.This is my sister-in-law who studied to be a midwife at the Utah College of Midwifery in her life BK, before kids. Here’s her blog. http://happyhoffmanhome.blogspot.com .She and her sister Sally were part of what got me to do home birth over 13 years ago which I ended up doing four times and hope to have another one. (Not that that’s an announcement. I am still working on improving my health before I get pregnant again.) She is not as into natural remedies and natural living as she used to be but that’s OK. They moved to Colorado from Arizona last winter and have been on a summer vacation back to AZ.

After listening to the Book of Mormon I tuned in to Classical 89, BYU’s radio station. I love the Thinking Aloud program and it was time for that. They always have interesting scholars and sometimes they have the program themed to the holiday. I wasn’t disappointed!  I listened to storyteller Syd Lieberman be interviewed. Wow, I love listening to storytellers! He has written a story about 1776 called The Summer of Treason. Get it free here http://sydlieberman.com/recordings/index.php. Just scroll down the page to find it.  I am looking forward to digging into the other stories he has for free here, like the Jewish folktales and the WWI story. I have yet to listen to the whole thing of the Summer of Treason but so far I like it.

I also learned more about the history of the Star Spangled Banner. We sang it in sacrament meeting and then again at the flag raising ceremony and then Cowboy sang it again in the evening as we went outside after the rain cleared up to do fireworks. It was nice to learn more about the history. I convinced Honor to apply for another scholarship to help him go to GWC, regardless of his winning of the Andau, and the theme was What the Star Spangled Banner means to me. So I did a little research on my own to inspire him. I shared what I learned but he wrote something totally different from his own head and wrote up an essay for this scholarship/essay contest. 

Anyway, the more I learn about history, the more I am learning that the American way is the Hebrew way, which stands for limited government,  and the British way is also the Roman way, which stands for unlimited government. Most of the world through all of history is into the Roman way, in various forms of nanny statism, socialism, communism, fascism, etc. They are all just different flavors of unlimited government, which is BAD government.

America was meant to be different, according to Book of Mormon prophecy and also according to the Founding Fathers. The Americans at Fort McHenry were being bombarded by the British who had broken their promises they made at the end of the Rev. War. At the end of the assault, these Americans put up an even bigger flag than had been flying previously, to show that they could withstand the best that the British had to give them. Francis Scott Key saw the flag and felt inspired to write a song about it. So my question is, are we Americans going to withstand the best that the British/Roman way is giving us in the form of socialism? Are we going to restore the Hebrew way by returning to our roots of freedom, which only comes from God? On Independence Day we celebrate freedom but when you look closely, we are not as free as we should be. We don’t always have liberty.

Liberty means being able to choose the right.  Stephen Pratt explained it this way. He said that recently he built a new home. He wanted to have numbers on his home wherever he wanted them. That is right, isn’t it, to put a house number on your home where you would like it to be, according to what pleases you aesthetically? Instead he was forced by the city to have them in a certain spot. That’s not liberty or freedom. That’s just one little example of multidinious examples of how government gets in the way of life and liberty.