On Independence Day and what Independence means for Americans

INDEPENDENCE DAY, 4TH OF JULY:

On this day, we, the people of the United States of America, will celebrate our country's INDEPENDENCE!

INDEPENDENCE and FREEDOM, though, are NEVER FREE: they ALWAYS cost someone blood, sweat, tears, and eternal vigilance...

INDEPENDENCE has always come as a result of wars that have been fought, of all the brave people who have died so we could have our freedom: freedom of speech, religion, freedom to even share our photos and messages on our Facebook pages, phones, and blogs - just to give the silliest example... In some countries, people cannot choose how many children they may have, who they may marry, their religion or ruler, to say nothing of women: in many countries, they have absolutely NO RIGHTS! I could go on and on about fundamental rights, such as LIFE, a gift from God, DENIED and taken away without freedom of choice...

While we celebrate INDEPENDENCE DAY on this  4th of July, it would be wise to keep our eyes and ears on what is going on in our country and ALL OVER THE WORLD (and if we happen to know more than one language, the more capable of doing so we become, and stronger)

I am proud to be an American: South American and North American!

Americas that became Independent!

We all have a role to play: let's keep vigilant and alert, prayerful and loving, firm and kind, lawfully abiding citizens, fully engaged in our country's reality, anticipating upcoming elections!!!

Our VOTES will be crucial:

All the amazing scientific and technological discoveries that came about between that Independence Day (237 years ago) and today cannot be seen as opposites to the great morals and patriotism designed and aspired by our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, all that is created by man to help others was originally designed by our Creator as a part of His Divine Plan to bless His Creation.  It is the wrong use of what man creates that turns that creation into evil.

But let us always remember:  we must fulfill our duties to continue enjoying our rights!!! And, not oddly, the Literature of this wonderful country shows us wisdom from those who not only were our Founding Fathers but also great writers:

          From POOR RICHARD IMPROVED, 1758, 

By Benjamin Franklin:

“Industry need not wish, " Poor Richard says, and He that lives upon Hope will die fasting. There are no Gains without Pains; then Help Hands, for I have no Lands, or if I have, they are smartly taxed. And as Poor Richard likewise observes, He that hath a trade hath an Estate, and He that hath a Calling hath an Office of Profit and Honour, but then the Trade must be worked at, and the Calling well followed, or neither the Estate nor the Office, will enable us to pay our Taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve, for, as Poor Richard says, At the Working Man’s House, Hunger looks in but dares not enter. Nor will the Bailiff or the Constable enter, for Industry Pays Debt, while Despair increaseth them, says Poor Richard. “    

The Initial and final excerpts from

 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE:

“In Congress, July 4, 1776.THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN STATES OF THE 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 affect 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. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies. For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.In every stage of these Oppressions. We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which the Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

It is evident to those who care about the Constitution that our rights are being taken away! Slowly but steadily...

Fellow Americans!

It is not too late to restore America’s values:  we can take this country back to the patriotism designed and aspired by our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence!

Our people have a passion for Freedom!

The pursuit of happiness is only possible for those who are free.

We are still free to pursue it as long our constitutional rights and obligations are maintained and enforced.

May God continue to bless the U.S.A.

 on this 4th of July

 and always!