Happy Birthday, USA

This is an open re-post of something I wrote on Facebook a bit ago...

A few hours ago, I wrote a trite "Happy Birthday, USA" as my Facebook status.  For no reason in particular, I realized that my previous words were insufficient, and as I said before, trite.  With this in mind, I'm going to take a little more time to express what Independence Day means to me, right here, right now.

-Independence Day honors people far braver than I, who chose freedom from a king who arbitrarily set rules from a throne, thousands of miles away.

-Independence Day calls forth the ideal of self-rule, which was worth more to these individuals than their reputation, property and careers.  Freedom was worth more than their very lives.

-Independence Day commemorates people far wiser than me, who worked together to devise a framework to propagate this ideal of freedom throughout the world, and throughout the ages.  This framework was strong enough to withstand the whims of a fickle population, but flexible enough to grow and change with its society.

-Independence Day reminds me that people far better than I have stepped forward, ready to sacrifice their very lives so that future generations could enjoy the freedoms set forth by our founding fathers.

-Independence Day brings the realization that we, as a society at large, take all of this far too lightly... it brings the wish that we can appreciate what we have... and it brings the hope that this appreciation can come without further bloodshed.