Today, as we celebrate Independence Day, we would do ourselves well to recall Calvin Coolidge, the only president born on the Fourth of July as did my friend Rick Sincere in his wonderful essay for the Richmond Times Dispatch:

In his 2008 book, The Cult of the Presidency, the Cato Institute’s Gene Healy wrote that Coolidge is remembered “mostly for his reticence and for fiscal policies that combined Yankee parsimony with generous tax cuts.”

That “Yankee parsimony” is on display in a short film that is thought to be the first time a U.S. president appeared in a “talkie” — a movie with sound.

In this four-minute clip. . . , Coolidge says that he wants to “cut down public expense. I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can re-establish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.”

Read the whole thing (and this too).

On this Fourth of July, it is particularly important that we recall that president born on the Fourth of July.  He truly got the meaning of Independence and understood the ideals to which our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

Tea Party protestors use language and symbols (e.g. “Don’t Tread on Me” flags) of our founders should be pleased to note that the ideas we express are nearly identical to those expressed by Coolidge in, what is believed to be, “the first presidential film with sound recording“:

So, on this Independence, let us recall the ideals of our Founders and listen to them so well expressed by the one president quite literally (and also figuratively) born on the Fourth of July.

My apologies for not getting this up sooner….. I slept in.  Well-needed rest after 6 weeks of constant travel.

Anyway, here is thought number one for 7/11/10:

In 1780, General Cornwallis said of Charlotte, NC that it was a “hornet’s nest” after patriots there harassed his forces during the American Revolution. As a result, Charlotte, now the seat of Mecklenburg County and the largest city in North Carolina, made the hornet its symbol.

In that spirit and given the times we live in, we purchased two new flags for our front porch this weekend.

Secondly, for those of you interested…. after the jump I have printed the FULL FOUR VERSES of our National Anthem — “The Star Spangled Banner”.  HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, y’all.

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Because I’m on a family vacation now celebrating my Mom’s 75th birthday with my siblings and niblings, I haven’t had nearly as much time as I would like to check the news, the blogs or even the comments to our posts.

When I first received the same e-mail Bruce received from our reader Peter Hughes about the pay adjustments Google is offering to gay and lesbian employees with domestic partners, I thought it was yet another piece of gay PC silliness. Yet, the more I thought about it, the less averse I became to the policy.

First, there does seem to be a certain inclination (among some segments of our culture, particularly in the part of the country where Google is headquartered) to bend over backwards to appease gay activists.  And I thought that was what was going on here.  And maybe it is.

I’m still not certain it’s a good idea, but then I’ve only had time to read snippets of Google’s justification for the policy.  That said, one thing I do know is that this is a private remedy to a (perceived) public problem.  It may seem PC on the surface, but, at least, we don’t see the heavy hand of government mandating this act. 

This is a private organization working independently of government to address a (what it sees as) imbalance in social benefits.  This may not be the solution we would have offered, but no one is coercing Google to make this concession.

In some ways, I see how this could a smart policy, a very smart one indeed.  There are many talented gay people in the technology industry and many with a more creative vision of further integrating that technology into our daily lives.  By offering this policy, Google makes itself a more attractive professional opportunity to such folk.  Indeed, it may well give them a competitive advantage as more and more search engines are coming online.

And those of who believe we must turn to the private sector to help promote the social changes we feel are necessary to make it easier for us to live openly as gay people in civil society should welcome such “experiments.”  

And if people don’t like ‘em, well, there are other search engines they can use.