I'm thankful that I was born and raised in the United States of America. 232 years ago, when faced with a government that refused to hear their petitions and sent troops to crush their protests, a freedom loving group of men declared that they would no longer be ruled by a king or his representatives, but that instead they would govern themselves. The signers of the Declaration pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of liberty, and most of them paid a price, some of them a heavy one, for that support. But not one of them turned back and renounced it.
Some of those same men met 11 years later to craft a new government, intended to express the principles of self-government, strong enough to protect the liberties they had fought for, but not so strong as to take them away. By the test of time, they succeeded magnificently: They established a nation that has set an example to the world of the blessings of liberty, the greatest defender of that liberty, the wonder and envy of all other people.
Like the grandsons of a wealthy man, we have not earned these blessings by our own effort or worth. We are warned that we become lifted up in pride, and become full of lies, and deceits, and mischief, hypocrisy, strife, murders, whoredoms, and secret abominations, the sword of God's justice will hang over us, and it will fall when the voice of the people chooses evil over good.
So I take a brief moment to celebrate, but then it's time to take my three hundred millionth part to help us, and our future generations, to keep and preserve the kind of freedom our ancestors fought and bled for.
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