Today is the day we celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the principal author being Thomas Jefferson. There’s many issues to think about this year (as there was last year) during this significant day. Issues such as the specific nature of our freedom, who it should apply to, and equal and fair application of the rule of law being foremost.

I’m going to cop-out and not expound on any of these issues. If I tried, I’d be writing this all day and into the next. And I’m sure I’d miss something, or get some fact wrong in the re-telling. Suffice to say that I’ll be exercising one of my freedoms this year, the freedom to vote, first in August, and later in November. There’s too much at stake these days to ignore these vital opportunities. It’s time to move beyond protests, marches, and long expositions and into action. It’s time to really vote for public servants based on merit, who actually understand an will uphold the principals espoused in the Declaration and the entire Constitution and its full Bill of Rights. Who understand what it means to be equal and fair when practicing the rule of law.

I have quite a bit to be thankful for with one notable exception, the celebration with fireworks. I live in the general vicinity of Universal Resort, nee Universal Studios Orlando. They’re going to light off Fourth of July fireworks later this evening. And then there’s all the neighbors who will also celebrate, some of them up to midnight, with their own fireworks. And I’ll be up, helping to keep the four footed ones calm. They don’t care for the loud explosions. But we’ll get through the night, just like we’ve done all the other years.

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 effect their Safety and Happiness.