The fourth of July in the United States is a commemoration of courage.
The courage of those who defied the King of England, at a time when to do so was to sign one's own death warrant...that was real courage.
That courage still exist in the United States. Everyday, ordinary citizens of the U.S. offer up opinions that directly contradict the opinions of the people who serve as the leaders of this country...and they do so with impunity, for that is the legacy of those first courageous men.
The United States was the first inorganic country, the first country that was created, literally, from nothing but ideals.
By brave, brave men who sentenced themselves to the gallows when they signed their names to the Declaration of Independence.
"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."
There are people who will argue about the language of that sentence, that the word "men" is misogynist (or worse), that the word "Creator' implies a religious preference, or that even using the words "certain unalienable rights" is a hypocritical statement in light of the years that followed wherein women, minorities, non-traditional gender-types, etc, were not guaranteed those unalienable rights...but those people are failing to factor in the specific period of time inwhich those words were written.
Those words were written in a time when simply agreeing with them - not actually writing them - was, as I mentioned earlier, writing your own death warrant. Those words were considered not just mere betrayal, but pretty much treasonous or worse, blasphemous.
Every single person connected in any way to the creation of the Declaration of Independence was sworn to secrecy, not only to keep themselves and their mission safe, but also their friends and family.
Thankfully, this was done before the existence of Twitter.
Courage.
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