Happy Independence Day from the Fernandina Observer!

Celebrate a Hometown 4th of July in Downtown Fernandina Beach today from 5-10 p.m.: music, contests, kids’ fun zone and the all-important fireworks!

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. ~Erma Bombeck

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Dave Scott
Dave Scott (@guest_55378)
4 years ago

I like Blue Angel flyovers, a few tanks and soldiers mixed in with my hot dogs, apple pie and lemonade, it stirs my patriotism and passion for my adopted country, knowing that they’re on alert willing to protect our freedoms.

Jacquelin Louise Osborne
Jacquelin Louise Osborne (@guest_55383)
4 years ago
Reply to  Dave Scott

Amen

Bernard Martinage
Bernard Martinage (@guest_55381)
4 years ago

Patriotism is flying the American flag and be proud of it, not ashamed of it, and remembering that the US Declaration of Independence is the first document is history stating that all men are created equal, as written by Thomas Jefferson, likely inspired by his friendship with Lafayette and great French philosophers such as Voltaire, and then paid for in blood by the American people and the French.

Saying that the 4th is about hotdogs is like calling a Christmas Tree a “winter tree”.

I’m not fond of tanks either, but it’s a great day to take a kid shooting and light up fireworks.

And for those who will lament that our flag is oppressive, myself being an immigrant whose family was liberated by the Allied forces I’ll tell you that you need to study your own history. And . . . as the slaves are concerned . . . more American were killed in the civil war in the process of “freeing the slaves” (which any educated and objective person know that the war was anything but about slavery) than all the American deaths in WWI, WWII, Korea and the Vietnam wars added together.

God bless the USA!

A humble and thankful legal immigrant and naturalized proud citizen, with the house with the biggest flag on the island.

Frances Wentz Taber
Frances Wentz Taber (@guest_55382)
4 years ago

Erma Bombeck’s sage words express my thoughts. Thank you for including in your Independence Day message. This comes from one descended from fifteen patriots of The American Revolution, two men who fought to save our Union in The Civil War (One served at Fort Clinch; the other died at Vicksburg.), and whose own father gave his life in World War II. I am completely imbued with patriotism. Nationalism is not a part of commemorating Independence Day.

Bernard Martinage
Bernard Martinage (@guest_55388)
4 years ago

“Nationalism” is not a bad word.

“Nationalism” is as much about celebrating our heritage and achievements as a great nation as it is in taking pride in whom we are.

The USA has established its own culture and it sure has been kinder to the world than the old empires were.

200+ years of democracy and we’re still free. We exceeded everyone’s expectation.

Nationalism is America’s spirit, and the one for which people from all over the world want to live here.

The day people start dying while trying to escape this country, as they do to escape Socialist and Communist countries we’ll have to reconsider our principles. Until then we’re doing great.

Juan Salleras
Juan Salleras (@guest_55385)
4 years ago

What a shame that this Journal of News and Opinion shows such bias on independence day.

Dave Lott
Dave Lott(@dave-l)
4 years ago

While I always have enjoyed the wry humor of the late Erma Bombeck, let us remember that it was hundreds of thousands of patriots that were willing to take up arms and lay down their lives that enabled our young country to establish its own identity. As we all know, freedom isn’t free.

Margo J Story
Margo J Story (@guest_55387)
4 years ago

God bless America…..home of the brave & land of the free!!