I'm grateful for those men who committed treason to formulate, agree on and sign the Declaration of Independence. The world was never the same. While the ideas may have been chatted about for 50 years or more previous to that moment in time, they weren't acted upon. While the coffee houses of Europe may have produced thinkers, I think that it is fair to say that real action began with those men who put their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor on the line for the belief that government is instituted by men and derives its powers from the consent of the governed. The modern age has no concept of what their honor meant to them but we may want to revisit it and take it to heart.
I am grateful for these rights - the freedom to exercise my religion and the freedom from a government established religion, the freedom of press, of speech, of assembly, of the right to bear arms, to not have to quarter soldiers, to have protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, for due process and impartial juries, protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
I am grateful for the intention of the 10th Amendment. I do not think that it is applied AT ALL.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I've seen and heard a lot of Thank You's to our Veteran's today. It is always popular to day "and the freedoms they defend". This is my little Thank You to those very first American veterans and all of the veterans since who believe in the Constitution and the ideas that are the foundation for the Declaration and the Constitution. I think that people need to do a better job of understanding what those ideas are, what the freedoms that we are afforded are and how we, as citizens, also need to protect them.
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