On this Independence Day, it might be good to reflect on what this day really stands for. It's not just a great day for family barbecues and fireworks, but a day to celebrate the birth of the greatest nation on earth. Or what was once the greatest nation.
July 4th, 1776, was the day the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. Have you ever read it? Or have you read it since high school Civics class? If not, you can do so here:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/doi/text.html
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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
If you read the list of grievances that follow this powerful statement, you'll see many are being committed by our own president. I wonder, then, when the American people will once again say "enough!" and declare Independence from the current oppression?
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