Happy Independence Day! Of course, this is a misnomer. On this day in 1776 we announced to the world we would not be ruled by a monarch - but Great Britain had other plans and we had to go through a long and brutal war to achieve independence - it was not until Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown that the individual states were free of the rule of King George. And even that was not the 'birthday' of a nation, as I often hear Independence Day referred. We were not a nation, we were a Confederation of independent former colonies. To create a nation required much work and compromise until finally we had a Constitution and were a nation in reality. The story is that Benjamin Franklin was stopped by a lady after the final vote by the states on the Constituion and was asked what system of government the new nations representatives had given the people. Ben replied, "A Republic, ma'am - if you can keep it."

It appears old Ben's concerns were warranted. The Constitution they so revered that they required all public officials, servicemembers, etc. to swear an oath to uphold is now considered an irrelevant and dusty old museum piece. Its main original purpose - preventing this new federal government from seizing all the power reserved to the people and the states - is no longer considered to be valid by most in DC, including now a majority of the Supreme Court.

Today, my prayer is that somewhere between the hot dogs, the beer and the fireworks, we remember the sacrifices made through the years to maintain the hard-fought freedom bequeathed to us by our ancestors and ask ourselves if we are really doing our duty as citizens to pass that freedom on to our children and grandchildren. Will they be free and able to pursue their vision of happiness unhampered by a tyrannical Federal despotism? I think we are on the precipice of the honest answer being no. It is not hopeless if the American people will wake up and take personal responsibility for our duty to posterity.

I pray this Independence Day is the day the alarm clock rings.