Happy Independence.

What the people wanted was a government which would provide a comfortable life for them, and with this as the foremost object ideas of freedom and self-reliance and service to the community were obscured to the point of disappearing. Athens was more and more looked on as a co-operative business possessed of great wealth in which all citizens had a right to share. Athens had reached the point of rejecting independence, and the freedom she now wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could be only one result. If men insisted on being free from the burden of a life that was self-dependent and also responsible for the common good, they would cease to be free at all. Responsibility was the price every man must pay for freedom. It was to be had on no other terms. -Edith Hamilton

I am so thankful that we able to choose our struggle. What I believe we MUST remember is that No one can promise to remove our struggle- While Athens was a glorious and enlightened civilization it their RUINS that we visit and are most familiar with- They were most noted for their MYTHOLOGY.

We MUST remember that our freedom to struggle towards happiness and liberty is divine and paid for with BLOOD.

What can be promised is a commitment to DEFEND our right to struggle as we see fit.
We can CHOOSE our pain- yup...there will be pain- so as I teach my daughter... make it worth it.

But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedoms defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.

Eisenhower

If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. -Frederick Douglass

Thank You Men and Women who have and do Defend our liberty- to PURSUE- happiness and know that it is fleeting and worth great effort- and many cases greater sacrifice.