July 4, 2012 -- Happy Birthday America!

While we are in the midst of a Presidential Election year,  we have come to Halftime in the Game of  (Oval) Offices.

Second Continental Congress signing the Declaration of Independence

Today, I don't care if you're Right, Left, or anywhere in between (that includes you PaulBots too!), today we are all Americans.  

Every year around July 4th, I read from AJ Langutth's Patriots on the history of how America became free of her Motherland, England. 

This is one my favorite passages from that book:

"When members of the Continental Congress came to Jefferson's stirring conclusion, a majority thought it should include one last appeal to the power even greater then George III....They did not meddle with Jefferson's last oath, more solemn than anything they might devise:

"And for support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortune and our sacred honor'"

"On July 4, 1776, independence was declared in language worthy of it."
-- AJ Langguth, Patriots, pg. 362

 And here are the words that made us a free peoples:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

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.

Words that changed the world.  Enjoy your July 4th!

And now, some music to enjoy!