Declaration of Independence

Happy Independence Day!

It was not any sort of premeditated plan but the first thing I did when I woke up today was to go online and read the Declaration of Independence. Have you read this thing since becoming old enough to understand it? Here's a portion to get you started but you can read the whole thing at many sites online.

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.

After reading it, you might also benefit from a little background reading on King George III who is the "tyrant" to which the Declaration refers. History judges him as a remarkably well-educated and broad-minded ruler. Not as the short-sighted, power monger we learn about in grade school.