America at 232: Liberty's fight (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Editorial)

"'We are in the very midst of a revolution,' wrote John Adams, 'the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations.'

"In a ringing preamble, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the document declared it 'self-evident' that 'all men are created equal,' and were endowed with the 'unalienable' rights of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' And to this noble end the delegates had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

"Such courage and high ideals were of little consequence, of course, the Declaration itself being no more than a declaration without military success against the most formidable force on Earth. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, an eminent member of Congress who opposed the Declaration, had called it a 'skiff made of paper.' And as Nathanael Greene had warned, there were never any certainties about the fate of war.

"But from this point on, the citizen-soldiers of Washington's army were no longer to be fighting only for the defense of their country, or for their rightful liberties as freeborn Englishmen, as they had at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill and through the long siege at Boston. It was now a proudly proclaimed, all-out war for an independent America, a new America, and thus a new day of freedom and equality." (David McCullough, 1776)

We won that war, of course. But, ironically and quite sadly, the war for our independence continues.

Our leaders have rationalized our liberties.

Our legislators have spent us into servitude.

The U.S. Supreme Court thankfully just affirmed the Framers' Second Amendment intent. But our courts regularly mock the Constitution.

Free and independent we remain, but a little less with each exception made, each dollar porked and every Founders' precept and Framers' proscription ignored.

Let us resolve on this Independence Day 2008 to rededicate ourselves to this nation's founding proposition. For liberty is the people's property. And it's the government that's supposed to serve the people -- not the other way around.