Declaring Independence

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;

The above lines are the parts most often recalled by those who have read the Declaration of Independence, but there is another line that follows that is of importance and often forgotten and of significant meaning in today's world - a line that the Obama should heed when he is condemning others who are seeking the freedoms that they are entitled to:

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.

That is what the Iranians are trying, that is what the Hondurans are doing - that is what any peoples wanting to taste freedom do.

REMEMBER THOSE WHO HAVE GIVEN SO MUCH FOR OUR FREEDOM

Links to our founding documents:

The Declaration of Independence and an Image

My copy hangs above the door in my home office. Sorry the picture is a bit rough - hard to photograph from below!!