It’s too bad that absolutely nothing has changed since my 4th of July post from last year. Well, actually, some things have changed — we’ve lost 1,049 more U.S. soldiers and who knows how many civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It makes me truly sad to hear the fireworks in the distance because I wonder if this is what it sounds like every night for people in Baghdad, Kabul, Tehran… only they aren’t hearing harmless firecrackers, they hear bullets ricocheting, bombs exploding — nothing entertaining about it, no coordinated music and cold beer to accompany the show. The grand finale truly is final.
I wish my fellow citizens would take Ron Paul’s advice and re-read the seemingly unknown document that founded our nation. I say ’seemingly’ because it sure doesn’t appear that anyone remembers why we declared our independence in the first place. If they did, they might put down their beers and say “wait a minute… this same s–t is going on right now, why aren’t we OUTRAGED and taking our country back?!”
“…The truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If you want to truly honor this 4th of July, I implore you to remember this country’s origins and revisit the document that started it all…
The Declaration of Independence
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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 of 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 shewn, 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. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
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