Love Your Country on July 4th, 2006

Happy Independence Day on this July 4th, 2006, the 230th birthday of our great country.

The best way to celebrate and honor the legacy of our forefathers is by actively supporting the democracy for which they shed their blood to found. To do that, I suggest your own copy of 50 Ways to Love Your Country by MoveOn.org. It's easy-reading, and packed with simple ideas, big and small, put into action by everyday people. It's loving your country as our founders loved their country.

Today, ponder afresh and be inspired by the radical, liberal nature of the Declaration of Independence, that became the law of the United States on July 4, 1776.

"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..." Read the entirety of the Declaration of Independence here at the National Archives.

God bless America!