Let Freedom Ring!

Get ready for another shamelessly patriotic Independence Day column.

When I start feeling overwhelmed by having to deal with the daily hassles life throws at me, I have to remind myself that despite everything, I still have my freedom.

For instance, I’m free to write this blog.

I wouldn’t be able to do that in Cuba, where the state-run internet routinely censors content.

In addition to blogging about our government, I’m also free to petition our elected officials to ask them to pass laws. Or not.

Not so much in North Korea, where Wikipedia claims, “between 150,000 and 200,000 political prisoners are detained in concentration camps, where they perform forced labour and risk summary beatings, torture and execution.”

I can practice any religion I choose, or no religion at all.

In Saudi Arabia, for instance, Sunni Islam is the established religion, and “and conversion from Islam to another religion is considered apostasy and punishable by death,” according to Wikipedia.

The Second Amendment of the Constitution gives me the right to bear arms for self-protection.

A Harvard (yes, Harvard!) “study of American and European gun laws and violence rates” determined that “Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not.”

Despite the frustrations I’m experiencing in my house hunting, I tend to forget that I enjoy the right to own private property.

The seizure of Zimbabwe’s privately owned commercial farms beginning in 2000, in an effort to redistribute the wealth, eventually led to the “demise of the agricultural sector” and the economic destruction of that country.

As an American, I also have the right to equal protection under the law.

As recently as March of this year, two gay men were executed in Iran for the “crime of perversion.” Another man was executed for “insulting the prophet.” The Free Beacon reported, “The executions come less than two months after Iranian authorities publicly hanged 40 individuals in a two-week period. Iran is executing at least two people a day, according to activists.”

Anytime I hear someone whine that there is “no justice in America,” I will offer to buy them a one-way ticket to Iran.

In addition to all the rights I mentioned above, William Harrison Hartley and William Shafer Vincent wrote in their 1974 book, American Civics, that we have many other freedoms:

To make doubly sure that Americans should enjoy every right and freedom possible, Amendment Nine was added to the Constitution. This amendment states that the list of rights contained in the Bill of Rights is not complete. There are many other rights that all Americans have and will continue to have even though they are not mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Among them are the following.

1. Freedom to live or travel anywhere in our nation
2. Freedom to work at any job for which we can qualify
3. Freedom to marry and raise a family
4. Freedom to receive a free education in good public schools
5. Freedom to join a political party, a union, and other legal groups

As Americans, these are just some of the rights and freedoms we enjoy because on this day in history, in 1776, the Continental Congress published the Declaration of Independence.

The final draft was completed on the morning of July 4. “Then, at last,” writes the National Archives, “church bells rang out over Philadelphia; the Declaration had been officially adopted.”

Please take a moment out of your busy day to remember that while this date is just another day on the calendar in 195 countries around the world, in the United States of America, the Fourth of July is a symbol of everything we hold dear.