Happy 229 America!!!!

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. To read the Declaration of Independence click on the link above. To understand the history, I invite you to read The History of Independence Day Also contemplate this op-ed piece that appeared today in the NYT What solemnity there is on the Fourth of July usually gathers toward evening as a lead-up to the detonations after dark. It isn't usually a holiday for introspection, not even if the rain is pouring down and the fireworks have fizzled. Most years, the Fourth feels, at its most patriotic, like a day of national boosterism with deep historical roots, a display of the justifiable pride of a proud nation. It's something we enact almost without thinking about it, though no less meaningfully for that. [snip] The word "freedom" especially seems to have hardened around the edges in the last few years. It has lost some of its ability to suggest the open-ended potential of our lives, the possibility of coming to new terms with the expectations we have been handed by earlier generations. The overtones of discovery the word once had seem to have been put on hold. Instead, there is a new complacency, a certainty that we know just what freedom means and exactly how it should look. There is an unwelcome comfort with the inequitable distribution of freedom even in our own country. There is a poisonous tolerance for the idea that freedom encompasses only the right to say positive things about America and its mission in the world. It's worth wondering, on this great holiday, how the rights that were articulated in the Declaration of Independence would sound if they were being voiced in earnest today. MORE.... Flag linked from 3dflags.com