July 3, 2010

Today we take for granted the monumental sacrifice those before us have made. On this anniversary of America's Independence, think of those who brilliantly identified and died for our liberties. Those who began the call for freedom from tyranny were no different from others in the mid 1700s; they were simply people who recognized the tourniquet of oppression clenching around them.

The Continental Congress had made futile attempts to find tranquility with the King and Parliament. As a last resort they knew independence from the mother land was their only option. During a sweltering hot and humid Philadelphia summer, they drafted one of the most brilliant documents in human history. A document which laid out the fundamental rights all humans have bestowed upon them by their creator, their grievances with King George III, and thus the natural right of the people to part from their ruler.

One can only imagine the nervous tension in the assembly room of what we now know as Independence Hall as the vote was taken for independence and The Declaration signed. The quill on that day may as well have been filled with the blood of each of the fifty-six men who signed the document. Each signer knew he had put not only his own life in great jeopardy but those of his family as well. For each knew the penalty of treason against the crown. And yet each of them was willing to sacrifice everything they had including life itself for the most fundamental aspiration of liberty.

Our founders carefully dissected human nature. They understood that by providing fundamental freedoms the gates to creative entrepreneurship would open. And they did. Americans have advanced society and lifted the masses to more prosperity in a mere 234 years; more than any other civilization in history. And all of it due to the principles of freedom. Simple and yet amazing.

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." -Ronald Wilson Reagan