July 4, 1776, is considered the day our nation was born. This was the day, after two days of study, that the Continental Congress approved the wording in the declaration. The first part of the document is designed to establish basic rights and to justify our reasons for the ongoing revolution. Thomas Jefferson started the reasoning with these two lines.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

These lines are considered the most important lines in modern democracy. What is even more amazing is that as inspiring as these lines are, our founding fathers created a government that would allow us to improve on them. No blame can be leveled at Mr. Jefferson for writing “all men are created equal”; he had no idea there was another way to think about the status of women. The United States Constitution allows amendments to improve our basic ideals as we become more enlightened. Though it reads “all men are created equal;” Americans now see “everyone is created equal” and amendments to the constitution reflect that new truth.

We still need the ability to amend the constitution because we have yet to achieve the founding fathers goal. We still are controlled by fear and doctrine and this control stops us from fulfilling the notion that all Americans have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is still a part in too many American’s minds that add the two words, “like us” to the statement making it “that all men like us are created equal”. There are too many that will still deny life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to American citizens because of the way the worship or their choice of life partner. There were no exceptions in the declaration but there still are in too many American minds.

This declaration also points to the duty and right to challenge an unfair government’s authority. We are at a difficult time in our democracy; enemies have found new ways to strike. Our soldiers our away trying to hunt down and destroy the head of the snake, but it still may lash out again. The fear of an attack and the painful memory of 9/11 make us wary of our neighbors and make us wonder about tougher laws and suspension of rights. Cicero, the great writer of Ancient Rome, said, “Laws are silent in times of war.” In many ways that statement is true today. When faced with danger we will trample on the rights of others and even give up our own freedom. This flies in the face of a statement of our own founding father Benjamin Franklin who said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”.

Before supporting the bugging your neighbor’s place of worship because you are sure it is a den of evil; remember your place of worship could be next. Before you hook up GPS tracking to your car or support the installation of neighborhood surveillance cameras; consider who will use them and why. The old response to resistance to constant surveillance is, “If you’re not doing anything wrong; there’s nothing to worry about.” The question is who defines the term anything wrong? Today things might be fine and all of the surveillance may be in the hands of people that respect a citizen’s privacy, but what about tomorrow? It’s Pandora’s Box; once it’s open it will never be closed.

My good friend John always says that being a police officer or an investigator in the United States is a very tough job. A case has to be made based on witness accounts and evidence obtained by lawful means. He says if the job is too hard for some officials then he suggests that they move to a country that allows doors to be kicked down and people to be watched. We have laws to protect our citizens from everyone including the government and to give them up is to tear up that great document officially proclaimed on July 4, 1776 and, if he were here, you would see Thomas Jefferson shed a tear.