America's Birthday

Tomorrow, we celebrate America's birthday.

As a matter of fact, today is technically America's birthday; it was the day they signed the Declaration of Independence, but the world only got wind of the fact the next day, and many of the men behind those signatures quickly lost their lives.

 

It was a time of great conflict, between personal convictions as well as two countries. England being in charge was the norm, as we'd call it, and many people figured, "Why fight it?"

Others believed that they owed it to their future generations, if not themselves, to have an independent country where they could make their own decisions and not have a king always tell them what to do or what not to do.

The questions were: how much would an independent government cost?

How many were willing to pay such a price?

And did you, yourself, believe strongly enough in your dream to give anything to achieve it, including your own life?

Despite what its name implies, freedom isn't free. It never has been, and never will be. That's why our flag includes stripes of red, to signify the innocent (and not so innocent) blood that was spilled for our sake, and continues to be spilled to this day.

Fireworks may be nice and all, but we must be extremely careful not to let the noise of fireworks override the noise of cannon fire.