Happy Independence Day

It's July 4th. Do you know where your freedom is?

Today we celebrate the rejection of tyranny. Today we celebrate the declaration 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."

While we celebrate, our government is listening to our phone calls, reading our e-mails and tracking our bank records, and calling for charges of treason to be brought against those who inform us of its activities. It continues to send our brave troops to fight an unjustified war. It seeks tax breaks for the wealthiest of the wealthy while 45.8 million Americans have no health insurance, while 37 million Americans -- including 10 percent of U.S. families -- live in poverty, and while the city of New Orleans continues to struggle to recover from a hurricane that struck nearly a year ago.

"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 effect 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."

Do you agree today with George Bush, who said "the state of our Union is strong"? Me, I agree with Susie.

Thank God we have baseball.