Trump Goes To Mt. Rushmore Today

President Trump is going to Mount Rushmore today to celebrate "Independence Day"---the 4th of July, a day early.

Today will include a massive fireworks display---just like Founding Father and 2nd US President envisioned in a letter to his wife.

This weekend we celebrate America, our founding, our blessings, our independence, and our God-given freedom.

Be informed, not misled.

Not everyone shares the President's passion to celebrate our independence.

Selective environmental and health concerns.

The Washington Post is reporting Trump's visit to Mount Rushmore today, but reminding America that the fireworks display is a break with the "decades-long ban on pyrotechnics at the iconic spot because of concerns about public health, environmental and safety risks."

WAPO reminds the citizens that the NATIONAL Park Service stopped fireworks in 2010 out of concern that it could ignite wildfires.

Ian Fury, a spokesman for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), said that the National Park Service says they are prepared for it and see no problems-- Fury says, "We are confident that the Rushmore Fireworks celebration can be conducted safely."

In fact, they even have firefighting resources at the site.

But it's not just the fires. Bezos' paper also expresses concern that there will be no "social distancing." And while only 7500 tickets have been given out, 125,000 people have requested tickets.

It's ironic how the Post and most other "news" papers---and other news services are expressing patriotic concern for the people's health and the environment at Trump's fireworks display, but have never raised concern over the hundreds of thousands of rioters who have been clogging our streets, burning our buildings and hurting, even killing people, while shouting "down with America"---or whatever---from a distance of 6 inches from one another---while the smoke of bonfires and burning buildings pollute the air.

Selective patriotism. Selective concern. Selective outrage.

The Democrat National Committee says the Rushmore event is really about "white supremacy" and racism.

Honest. They said that.

The official Twitter account of the Democratic National Committee accused President Trump, not of destroying the environment, but of "glorifying white supremacy" over his planned celebration of July 4th at Mount Rushmore.

Soon after posting the message, the Democrats took it down.

The New York Times, using the pretext of deep concern that Rushmore is located on public land that was stolen from Indigenous people, the sculptor's purported ties to white supremacy, and two of its subjects were slave owners, publishes a volume of reasons to attack the President and shame the event.

Mount Rushmore was built on land that belonged to the Lakota tribe and sculpted by a man who had strong bonds with the Ku Klux Klan. It features the faces of 2 U.S. presidents who were slaveholders.https://t.co/pHmJScnYbb

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 1, 2020

The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, had been previously involved in the massive carving at Stone Mountain Georgia that memorializes Confederate leaders.

The Times also reports that Borglum espoused anti-Semitic views at one time. Oh, that they would be so pro-Israel all the time.

And the Times quotes from a book by author John Taliaferro written about the history of Mount Rushmore:

Critics of the monument have also taken issue with the men whose faces were etched into the granite. Mr. Borglum chose Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt, he said, because they embodied “the founding, expansion, preservation and unification of the United States.”

But each of these titans of American history has a complicated legacy. Washington and Jefferson were slaveholders. Roosevelt actively sought to Christianize and uproot Native Americans as the United States expanded, Professor Smith said. “He was a racist,” he added.

And although Lincoln was behind the Emancipation Proclamation — a move some have characterized as reluctant and late — he has been criticized for his response to the so-called Minnesota Uprising, in which more than 300 Native Americans were sentenced to death by a military court after being accused of attacking white settlers in 1862.

While these "progressives" wallow in the past, conservatives have moved on, not because we don't care, or are insensitive---but because all have sinned, including our modern-day Pharisees who choose to virtue signal on the one day each year that's set aside to celebrate the goodness in America. And our God-given freedom.

Only Jesus Christ can truly and fully forgive the sins of the past---how much penance and reparation is required? Or would the bringing down of Trump suffice?

Goodness in America.

After touring America, the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote this:

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers – and it was not there... in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there... in her rich mines and her vast world commerce – and it was not there... in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution – and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote that the chief value of studying the past is "rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate guardians of their own liberty...History by apprising them of the past will enable them to be a judge of the future."

In a letter written after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Virginian John Page posed a rhetorical question to Thomas Jefferson:

"We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?"

While loud, uninformed, biased, anti-American voices seek to devalue the virtue and goodness of America, tens of millions of us still believe the "angel"---the hand of God, rides the whirlwind and directs the affairs of the greatest experiment in human freedom in history.

And God is in control.

Our Founding Fathers knew and believed it, and so must we believe that God is in control. America is a blessed and exceptional nation.

Celebrate it.

John Adams, a Founding Father, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and patriot, suggested in a letter to his wife, this is how America should celebrate Independence Day:

"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

Be Blessed. Be Free. Be Prayerful.