On July 4th, 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed by a bunch of guys who would have been guilty of treason if our desire for independence had not worked out on their favor.
The words are beautiful and speak to our desire to be a nation that believes in freedoms that we are all willing to defend to the end. I know that we all have differing opinions as to how these freedoms are to be insured but I truly believe that we can all agree that these freedoms are essential to the core values and foundation of this nation.
Today; remember in your thoughts the men and women of our nation that have chosen to defend our freedoms and place themselves far away from their families and friends. Give them our thanks as we fire up the grills, crack open the beers and get ready end the day with fireworks.
The following is opening text of the Declaration of Independence with the original spelling and capitalization left in place.
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 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. --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.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
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