I love the 4th of July and the 5th, 6th, 11th…

Celebrating the birth of our nation brings so much more of the “Big Picture” to mind.

Here we are flipping our burgers and hot dogs knowing that we have in excess of 100,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen around the world deployed so that we can do it. It might be the kid down the street, our friend’s grandson or, in some cases, it is our neighbor.

They establish a presence in some far off country so that we can live our life in peace. So that this system of ours can prosper. They also make up a huge number of graves around the world who gave it all for that same system.

A large international airplane manufacturing company is getting ready to build a plant in Mobile, Ala. We have the BMW plant in Spartanburg along with the Honda ATV plant up the road. There are many more examples that could be cited. What brings these foreign companies to the USA? It’s the very same system that permits you and me to flip burgers.

We can argue with our system, file appeals or even stand on a street corner and rant and rave about it. Many countries do not allow anything of a sort and incarcerate objectors. So we have something very special here called America.

Our ability to reconcile many day-to-day problems that occur by just re-reading the founding documents of our nation and following the “yellow brick road” is nothing short of miraculous. We have tried the “short cuts” a few times and learned from those that they do not work.

Now we move from the celebration of our birth to another aspect of our great nation. That is the election process facing us in November.

Our system has given each of us the opportunity to select our representatives at every level of government. What could be fairer from our system than the freedom to vote? The refining of the process has been constant since our birth and it must be good or we would not have the world’s attention every time we do it. What makes people want to come here to live (both legally and illegally) if it is not good?

For every eligible voter, Election Day should be a dress-up occasion. We should all have a smile on our face and feel so proud that our system is at work and our hard earned place in the voting booth secured. You get to choose who and whatever you want. It is not an event to take lightly since it is the way forward for our system that we treasure so much.

Oh by the way, let’s not store our celebratory flags too far away so we can display our pride of our nation with our athletes representing us in the London Olympics. The vim and vigor the athletes display to the rest of the world on our behalf again says that our system must be good.

We can celebrate the U.S. of A. every day, just as we do on our national holidays.