Friday, July 3, 2009

Happy Independence Day!


I am a huge fan of the Fourth of July. I am an avid local parade attender, although my husband absolutely loathes sitting in the sun watching medeocre floats and high school bands pass by. The only enjoyment he receives is taunting the local beauty queens, calling them by name and practically embarrassing them, and me! I cry when the Purple Heart truck passes, or the Veterans, or every time the National Anthem is played. I love the fireworks, the barbeques, and the family traditions of homemade chocolate mint brownies and ice cream. I also take time to reread documents of our founding fathers, finding such inspiration and wisdom in their words. Here is the document we are in essence celebrating, and I've included my favorite passages.

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.... And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

1 comment:

John Ottosen said...

It's to bad that we don't live by each other. Danette feels the same way you do and I feel the same way Ryan does! You two could go together!