Yesterday, during the celebration, I asked a certain gentlemen what the significance of July 4th is. This gentlemen happens to be well educated, though in public school, it was in the days when public schools still taught something besides how to recycle, put a condom on a banana, and how terrible the early settlers were for taking the Indian's land from them.

"Well," he answered, "it's the celebration of our independence from Britain."

"But why July 4th?" Why not the 2nd or the 6th, or even another month?" I asked. Well, he didn't know, which astonished me. Apparently many people do not know, so I will not embarrass you, dear reader, by asking if you know, in case you have received a modern day public education, in which case you probably think July 4th is the date George Washington threw his sneaker across the Potomac.

The incident was a useful one to me, however, because it reminded me of how little Americans know about their country. Here is a day when all over the country, cities and counties are burning millions of dollars of taxpayer's money in fireworks displays to celebrate, they know not what. They cannot know, when that very celebration is a contradiction of what is being celebrated.

I have no objection to fireworks of any kind. The right to enjoy them, however, has been taken away from individual citizens, who could decide for themselves how much of their hard-earned money they would squander on the momentary pleasure of flashes of light and concussive bangs. It is when the government uses our hard-earned money, extorted from us in the form of taxes, to put on fireworks displays for the entertainment of fools who do not know all that day represents has been lost, that all freedom loving individuals should object, and most vehemently.

July 4th is called Independence Day because it is the day the American people declared their independence by signing the Declaration of Independence. That document lists American's grievances with King George III. While Americans celebrate Independence Day, they are oblivious to the fact that under the present George who rules this country, almost all the grievances Americans had with the former George are worse today than they were then; taxes being one of the main grievances, they are today several times what they were under the insane King George.

All of the freedoms for which American Revolution was fought are lost or being lost. Most Americans have no idea what those freedoms are. If we are ever to have those we've lost again and keep from losing the few that remain, every American must know what they are—every American needs to know why we fought for those freedoms and what their loss means.

Read the Declaration of Independence to understand why those brave men fought, and would rather have died then live in the kind of slavery we are headed for. Read the Constitution of the United States of America, or at least the Bill of Rights, to understand what the founders of this country meant by individual liberty, and to see that virtually every one of those liberties has been taken away or severely limited.

The Declaration and Bill of Rights are very short, and available on this site. I will make them permanent articles. The Constitution, though longer, is not terribly long—it should be read just to understand its whole purpose was to limit the government, not empower it. Maybe next year we will all really have something to celebrate on the Fourth of July—at least we'll know what we're supposed to be celebrating.