Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Uh, Happy July 2?

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I didn’t want to dampen the festivities yesterday, but now that the birthday of our magnificent nation is behind us, in the interest of keeping every member of our beloved community at a peak of patriotic acuity, I just wanted to note:

  • July 2, not July 4, is actually our birthday: that is the date on which the Continental Congress declared us independent. (The Declaration of Independence accounts for the confusion: this proclamation of an action taken two days earlier was dated 4 July — and, in fact, signed by most delegates on 2 August).

  • The liberty celebrated by the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is the end of slavery in the 1800s. If it rang for the Revolution, no one noted it.

  • A chap named Frances Hopkinson designed our flag. No one knows who sewed the first one, but there is no evidence Betsy Ross, a Philadelphia seamstress, had anything to do with it.

    Read an exhaustive discussion of these and other interesting myths of our history at the History News Network.

    Now back to the reality of Vietraq and a President who won’t take responsibility for anything from 9/11 to convicted felons from his own administration.

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