Happy Independence Day 2010!

As a good patriot, today I am celebrating the 4th of July like every American should- displaying my patriotism with flags and fireworks, improving my property by mowing my lawn and trimming the bushes, enhancing the quality of my life by eating great food and spending time with my family, and remembering my liberty by re-reading our founding documents. If you haven't done so already, make sure you take a minute of your time today to reflect and read the Declaration of Independence, and don't feel silly about reading it before the BBQ or as the bedtime story for your kids tonight.

In particular, read and think about the first part of it:

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...

Those lines mean something, to me, to conservatives, to Republicans, and to America, and we should always remember how revolutionary those ideas are, how incredible it is to actually believe them, and how much of a leap of faith you must make to follow them. You really need to BELIEVE in those ideas- not just say them and not just work to put policies in place to govern our nation, but believe in your heart of hearts in those words that lay out truth of the human condition and the nature of government.

Those ideas needed to be fought for back in 1776, and our Founding Fathers did so in the Revolutionary War- but the ideas in the Declaration of Independence still need to be fought for today and every day, because it is the nature of tyranny to slowly strip away life, liberty, and property and to enlarge the government so that it unaccountable and tyrannical. Today, we have watched our liberties been rationalized away by our leaders, our legislators spend us into servitude and seize our own property to do so, our courts regularly mock the Constitution and believe it to be a dead thing, and especially lately, unimaginable tyranny and government control of our day-to-day lives.

You and I will always been free and independent- no government can take that away from us- but every day, our free and independent condition is lessened- with each new dollar taken from us, with each new exception to our rights made, with each life lessened, and with each regulation passed. As a nation, we are dishonoring our Founding Fathers and what they fought for and letting down our children, who will not get to grow up in a nation based on life, liberty, and property, but instead will be raised in increasing tyranny and rule of man.

So on this Independence Day, rededicate yourself to our founding ideas, enjoy your life, liberty, and property, and be sure that you spend some time reading the Founding Documents to your friends, family, and children. Happy Independence Day 2010!