(I posted this on another site on 7/19/08)

To believe in one's country - especially when that country is this grand and wonderful United States of America - is more than just something you can say in passing and then go about your daily business as if you hadn't said it.

Belief requires action:

Get up every morning and thank God (or whomever you believe in - Allah, lucky stars, whatever) that you were born in the land where the greatest opportunity to achieve your dreams exists.

Dare to dream! You've been given this wonderful opportunity - it's wasted if you don't DO SOMETHING WITH IT!!

Do something every day to work towards that dream!

Don't you dare let anyone else tell you "you can't do it" or "you're not good enough". In this country - if you work hard enough - and long enough - and treat people the right way while you're at it - you can be anything you want to be!

Be responsible! Do what is necessary, as a citizen, as a taxpayer, as a member of your family - especially as a member of your family.

FREEDOM is not defined as the absence of responsibility. FREEDOM is the reward for the exercise of responsible choices and behavior. BE RESPONSIBLE!

Don't expect others to take care of you. If you're able-bodied, able-minded - you have the obligation to take care of yourself - and any others that you bring into this world. DO IT! AND BE PROUD OF IT!

ACHIEVE! You have the obligation as an American to achieve! You do not have the right to sit on your butt and watch others do and expect them to do for you as well. Failing to try - failing to at least put out an honest effort - is a betrayal of the very LIBERTY you have been entrusted with.

We all have the right to succeed, and to reap the rewards of that success. No one has the right to take that away from us.

We all have the right to fail, to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and try again. But NO ONE has the responsibility to do it for us. When we fail, it is OUR JOB to get up - not the government's job.

STOP saying SOMEONE OUGHT TO DO SOMETHING.
DO SOMETHING!!!

I believe in the power of the individual to dream, to apply effort towards that dream, to fail in the effort if necessary, but to eventually succeed and fulfill that dream!

I DO NOT believe in the right of groups to usurp the individual's right to achieve!

I believe EXCUSEISM is the worst sort of cancer affecting this country. The willingness of her citizens to accept anything less than 100% effort from themselves and each other is a disease. STOP MAKING EXCUSES for why you CAN'T do it - START FINDING WAYS YOU CAN!!!

I believe the federal government's role should be to protect our nation from external enemies, and to prevent barriers to our individual success. Anything more than that is an overreach on the part of the Federal Government. GET OUT OF OUR WAY, WASHINGTON!!

I believe the American Citizen is the most gifted, most potentially powerful person on the planet. He or she has the opportunity and the right to achieve things most other citizens of the world cannot even imagine. We have the responsibility to live up to that opportunity - or we risk losing it. Every time we accept "good enough" when "GREAT" was possible, we risk losing it.

GO OUT THERE AND ACHIEVE!! IT'S YOUR BIRTHRIGHT! IT'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!
IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!