Happy July 4th, 2006! It’s a Great Day in America!
First of all, I’d like to welcome you all to our debut of the Daily Politique Blog!

Please feel free to post responses, comments, etc.

I’ll try to keep it (relatively) brief, so lets get right to the ‘meat’ of the first post.

I’d like to begin with giving you a couple of informative sources on the political system in the US and how the parties are structured. It may be wise to read this entire post first, then come back and select links that you may be interested in accessing.

Directory of all US Political Parties
http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm
There are many more registered parties than you may think. Like my wife’s grandmother says to this day:

“There are enough ways in this world for everybody to have one of their own”

Breakdown: There are 2 “major parties” and (contrary to popular belief) 38 “third parties” and 16 “other parties”

http://www.gop.com/media/2004platform.pdf (92 pages)

http://www.democrats.org/pdfs/2004platform.pdf (43 pages)

The bottom line is that this country was founded on diversity and freedom of the people.
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration_transcript.html
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The questions before us now [in my feeble little mind] are -based on the previous informational links -what is our goal as Americans and are we leaders or followers?

There are two leading views (generally attributed to the 2 major political parties). We know that America is seemingly divided –almost right down the middle since the election season of 2000. Let us illuminate these views momentarily and then revisit my question as to ‘what is our goal’.

When I google “conservative July 4th” I get this as ‘today’s opinion’:
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MichaelMedved/2006/07/04/todays_anti-american_leftists_betray_their_own_radical_heritage

When I google “progressive July 4th” I get this as ‘today’s opinion’:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2005/07/01/a_july_4th_covenant.php

If you bother to read these pieces –you’ll notice the sharp divide that we all know exists.

The attached audio clips include (1) a clear and heartfelt dedication to the American Spirit (Ray Charles), another is the President’s July 4th radio address (from the right). Finally, we have a clip from an opposing voice Joe Maddison (from WOL AM in DC - 'The Power' ). Enjoy!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060701.html
REAL audio: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060701.a.ram

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-CIA-Bin-Laden.html
AUDIO posted on Blog – “Maddison – bin Laden Unit”

We’ll leave it here for today –tomorrow we get back to the question of
“…what is our goal as Americans and are we leaders or followers?”