The land of the free and the home of the brave

What is the 4th of July? Beyond the barbecue, watermelon, and fireworks, I mean.

How many people are aware what the date signifies? Not the beginning or the end of the American revolution. What was it? Quick.

Are you still stumped? Probably not, because you're one of my readers and more enlightened than the general populace. But I'm sure many Americans are. So let's refresh.

"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one group to dissolve the political bonds 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 Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to 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 efect 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 shown, 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 to absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

The Declaration of Independence goes on to enumerate the intolerable actions of King George III. I won't go into them here. You should have learned some, at least, in school. Basically it came down to restriction of freedom and loss of representative government.

John Adams encouraged Americans to celebrate this day with fireworks, and we have not disappointed him. But I don't think he intended for us to forget the significance of the day.

It's not about barbecues. It's about fighting for our rights.