As an American, I am always excited about this time of year as my country’s birthday examines the blood, sweat and years (now some 237 of them officially) it took to get this far. The future that my forefathers fought for seemed bleak back then, but their unified vision and collective past reminded them what the absence of freedom was like. Today, freedom—even in its more luxurious form of hamburgers, Chevrolet pick-up trucks and good old fashioned apple pie—remains sacred as ever even as individual rights seem to be legislated into oblivion the more “advanced” we become as a society.
Back in the day, the Constitution took less than 100 hundred days to draft a position where we together, stood as Americans to say: no compromise. Today, it took less than a few to realize that without transparent and real checks and balances, without oversight over those who make our laws, leadership is still: simply human (and incredibly hard). There seems more time spent documenting a future where SOPA and PIPA could rule the internet to irrelevancy… a future where my data, my memories and ideas belong to others to sell-away to the highest bidder (government or advertiser). Between the PRISM scandal and responses like Restore the Fourth, one can see that the battle for freedom doesn’t lay in the balance of security and civil rights, it lays in the fundamental right that each individual owns everything they create. Personal responsibility down to the 1st and last word. That is what the 4400 words in the Constitution tell me to be the time-tested truth.
Happy Birthday, America; and remember: it’s called Independence Day for a reason (still). Let’s make the ‘Big Ooohhhh, ahhhh’ count, keeping in mind what it took to get this far. The world is watching.