We are signed up to receive various emails. We got this in...and feel it is very relevent...and should make all of us think about what is happening to our country and freedoms. We are reposting it below:
Happy Independence Day
Dear John: We would like to wish you a very happy Independence Day.
We also invite you to consider the state of our freedom today.
234 Years of Independence: Our Freedom Preserved?
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the 13 United States of America,
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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 of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the 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.
On this day 234 years ago, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. It is one of the most memorable freedom documents of all time, proclaiming every human being's right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Founding father and second U.S. President John Adams also left us some words to consider today: "You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it."
These two men died July 4, 1826.
Ten days earlier, Jefferson sent a remarkable letter to the citizens of Washington, D.C., saying he was too ill to honor their invitation to their 50th anniversary celebration of the Declaration of Independence.
Though addressed the citizens of Washington, Jefferson spoke to all future generations of Americans – to you and to me. You can read his letter here.
This letter is considered one of the sublime exaltations of individual and national liberty. Jefferson’s personal vision of the Declaration of Independence he helped to write and of the American nation are examples to the world of the blessings of self-government.
In that last letter, Jefferson expressed his wish that "the annual return of this day" would "forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."
What Would He Think Now?
I shudder to think what Jefferson would say of what has happened to those cherished rights in modern America.
Do We Care Any More?
Ask yourself, have we as a nation and as a people shown "an undiminished devotion" to the rights Jefferson, Adams and so many others fought for -- rights for which over a million Americans have died in all our wars?
How could the 3rd president comprehend that a "conservative" 43rd president and a "liberal" 44th president had both forsaken the constitutional rights about which he spoke so eloquently?
Bipartisan Shame
President Barack Obama, a lawyer and professor who taught constitutional law, has failed to live up to his campaign pledge: “to restore our Constitution and the rule of law” -- both of which President George W. Bush, certainly no student of the law, did so much to weaken and distort.
On civil liberties, Mr. Obama has quietly solidified the worst legal positions and anti-civil-liberties policies of the Bush administration.
He even stood in front of the original Constitution and Bill of Rights at the National Archives and announced his agreement with these Bush policies.
Mr. Bush claimed to have sweeping powers as commander-in-chief that allowed him to bypass the Constitution and other legal constraints when fighting terrorism, trampling individual rights.
And Mr. Obama’s policies have not changed that approach.
Torture, State Secrets, Surveillance
Mr. Obama has continued Bush policies such as the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program to transfer detainees to other countries, possibly to be tortured.
He’s invoked the overly broad “state secrets” privilege to shut down some lawsuits, just as Bush did.
Mr. Obama wants to detain suspects for terrorism who would be hard to prosecute. Forget the guarantees of confronting one’s accusers, a speedy trial, a jury of one’s peers --Mr. Obama’s has ratified the wiretapping, surveillance and detention policies were inherited from Mr. Bush.
A Tragic Mistake
A leading constitutional scholar suggests that Mr. Obama's embrace of Mr. Bush's radical policies will mean danger for future generations.
Bipartisan acceptance on these rights violations guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights will turn these exceptions into government practice.
American fought and won independence from Great Britain was against all odds. But now it looks like both parties of the U.S. government have destroyed more liberties than King George III and the British ever did.
Political Wars Against Our Freedoms
Under the undefined, open-ended "war on terror" and the failed "war on drugs" politicians have stolen our American liberties. “The Patriot Act” brought back hated British policy and has all but destroyed Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Indefinite detentions and military commissions resemble the Crown’s secret Star Chambers that had ended before the Revolution began in 1776.
Undiminished Devotion Needed Now
On this 234th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, 185 years after Jefferson expressed his dying wish that "the annual return of this day" would "forever refresh our recollections of these rights and an undiminished devotion to them," no honest observant American can say with any certainty that we have honored his wishes.
Yet is not too late for Americans to reclaim and reassert the rights for which so many gave their last full measure of devotion.
May God bless America – now more than ever.