Happy Independence Day!

"Four Score and Seven Years ago", (times 2.7 :P) our fore-father's committed high treason.

"That's what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration. Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, and, oh, my personal favorite: had their entrails cut out and burned!
So here's to the men who did what was considered wrong, in order to do what they knew was right."

But we celebrate this High Treason on our dearly beloved Independence Day because,
"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 provide new Guards for their future security."

We will have fireworks, we will have parades, we will all wear red, white, and blue and cheer and laugh and enjoy our freedom because of these men who risked all to get away from tyranny.
It's worth a holiday.
(Please, no offense to any Great Britain-ers out there. It is simply my "Patriotism and...all that." to quote your Thomas Clarkson of Amazing Grace. ;)

"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 inalienable 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 to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or 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." -Thomas Jefferson

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?"-Thomas Jefferson

It's totally a cliche, but today, more than ever, I'm proud to be an American. :) ~Rachel