Nothing Important Happened Today

Reportedly those are the words written in the diary of King George III on July 4, 1776. We all know that on that date 56 men gave everything they had, starting the process which would gain us our freedom from England.

There were plenty of doubters that thought they were crazy. After all why would you want to stand up to a huge and powerful government with your little band of hot heads. Simply nuts.

The actual signers of the Declaration of Independence knew that what they were going to face, often characterized by this quote from Benjamin Franklin, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately".

Here is the first two paragraphs of our Declaration of Independence...

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.

Go out today and enjoy our Independnce Day with your families, but please remember your freedom on this day was a gift to you by the sacrifices of our ancestors both in 1776 and every struggle since. Remember that freedom is not free.