Jul 02, 2005

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif.--Huntington Beach will host the largest 4th of July Parade west of the Mississippi River on Monday. This year's theme is, "Huntington Beach Celebrates the American Spirit."

More than 250,000 parade goers are expected to celebrate their American spirit and enjoy the weekend festivities. The city will present its 101st parade, which includes 300 plus entries including marching bands, celebrities, equestrian teams, floats and many community and cultural groups.

The many different cultures and lifestyles represented in the parade show the diversity and greatness of our Southern California community. The daylong celebration explodes along the streets of downtown Huntington Beach, with shops, food and a 5K race.

These events come together to show the spirit of Southern California as we come together to celebrate our freedoms.

What is it that we are really celebrating this weekend? Of course we are celebrating a sense of community and togetherness, some of us are celebrating memories and our families, but is there more to it?

We are celebrating that we live in a truly free society where our rights and freedoms are protected. We are celebrating a country where these freedoms have been a beacon of hope to the rest of the world for the last 229 years.

Over the history of humankind, America has a relatively short lifespan. It has however, seen the rise and fall of many foreign dictatorships. It has also been the foundation for many more governments who have stood against time to preserve peoples rights.

One right, Freedom of Belief is one of the greatest things about America. Because America is historically a nation of immigrants, our country rests on the backs of those who came here for this freedom to believe.

Sadly, most of the world's people do not have these freedoms. Absolute dictatorships still exist.

One dictatorship, The Peoples Republic of China is one of the most populous nations, yet the Chinese people have nearly the least number of freedoms of any people in the world.

This lack of freedoms is due to the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) systematic campaigns to destroy its people's belief systems. One of the largest groups whose beliefs are persecuted by the Chinese government is the Falun Gong meditation group.

Inside China, more than 100 million Falun Gong practitioners have lost their rights of belief, assembly, and speech due to the CCP's campaign to destroy this practice. They have even lost their most precious right, the right to live, as more than 2,600 practitioners have met their untimely deaths due to police torture or abuse.

Outside of China, Falun Gong practitioners can be found in every major city in the world advocating their freedom of belief. They participate in many community events and freely teach anyone that wants to learn their slow moving qigong exercises at local parks.

In China, Falun Gong practitioners would be denied participation in a parade, let alone be permitted to appear or practice in public.

But last year, one of the entries in the Huntington Beach July 4th Parade was the Falun Gong practitioners group. They had dancers that displayed beautiful Chinese traditional costumes, a melodic waist drum team and participants demonstrating the Falun Gong exercises against a giant Lotus Flower Float that nearly filled Huntington Beach's downtown Main Street.

The practitioners will return this year for an encore presentation. The opportunity for all cultures to come together and be able to "Celebrate the American Spirit" is a freedom in itself.

So, while enjoying whatever festivities you decide to attend this weekend in Southern California, please remember to celebrate with some words our country was created with:

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Source http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-7-2/29997.html