Inside the small room, guarded by one guy at the door, who didn't even look in my bag, were maybe 5 or 6 people quietly perusing the documents on display. The room was very dark and very cool and only the barest lighting was used to light up the papers. I started on the lefthand side of the room, looking at the newspapers that had run the Declaration in its entirety after the posting of the Broadside on July 5, 1776. A couple of Philadelphia papers, as to be expected; a week later, a New York paper. Since I made my way around clockwise, rather than in the approved order, I saw the the first New York printing of the final version issued by Congress and the second official version ordered by Congress (published by a woman printer in Baltimore) before I came upon the actual, original broadside -- large sheet for posting in a public place -- issued by the Philadelphia printer on July 5, 1776 and read aloud.

I stood and read every single word. I've read it before, of course, but it struck me at that moment what a simple, straightforward, compelling document it is. It's a work of art in its clarity.

And it should be published in every newspaper every year on July 4th (or 5th). And everyone living in the United States should read it once a year, including (or especially) the President and Vice-President, and the members of Congress. Maybe it should be read out loud on the floor the Senate and the House, read aloud from the Rose Garden of the White House and on the steps of the Supreme Court. Because this is *it*... the document that we founded an entire form of government upon. That governments cannot govern without the consent of the governed. That you can't just take away what we decided were our fundamental rights -- rights that are under seige these days under the guise of "protecting" us -- us, the American citizen. We're being protected from our own rights in the name of "safety." On this issue, I am totally with Benjamin Franklin:

"Those who would sacrifice their essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. " - Ben Franklin

You may think that it is only "foreigners" whose liberties and rights are being trampled these days, but have you actually read the terms of the Patriot Act? Did you know it's actually called: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001? if that is 1984 Newspeak for "Abridging Your Rights," I don't know what is.

Have you heard Dick Cheney's invective because the Democrats chose Ned Lamont against long-time position holder Lieberman? He basically called every Democrat who didn't agree with the President's policies "an insurgent"! What the hell? Aside from the fact that Cheney -- as a Republican -- has no business criticizing the Democrats' choice (and perhaps, given his agenda, should even welcome it) -- have rwe actually reached the point again, as we did during the McCarthy years, when no loyal opposition is allowed? You can't love your country *and* be opposed to Bush's foreign policy? What happened to voting your conscience? What happened to "I do not agree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it?"

What's happened to American backbone? Where is our sense of balance? When did we become so harshly divided as a people? When did we decide that sacrificing the right to speak your mind, and let your neighbor speak his, was comforting the enemy? When did we as Americans become so smug, so secure, so blind, that we no longer need the protection of our rights and liberties, laid out in the Declaration and emphasized in the Constitution?

Re-read your Declaration of Independence.

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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed Jefferson knew. Adams, Franklin, Hancock, all the signers and designers of our country knew -- your rights and liberties are not taken away from you without your consent. If we, as Americans, want to cower in our corners, be subjected to searches of our personal items, be pulled out of wheelchairs, have your shoes taken off, be denied your rights as party members to choose your own candidates, allow your phones to be tapped, your mail to be read, your reading choices to be questions... then it's our own damn fault. "We have met the enemy -- and they are us!"*

As for me, I love my country. If it comes down to it, I'll defend it with bricks and bats and kitchen knives. But I don't see how giving up my right to privacy protects my country. I don't see how handing over a sense of justice and decency to be controlled by the kind of government that would keep men and women imprisoned sometimes for years without charges, and sometimes without evidence, keeps my liberty secure. If anything, it sullies whatever justice and liberty I still do retain.

I'll fight the things I think wrong, and question the decisions of the elected (or semi-elected, anyway) since as an American, you and I supposedly put them in their positions, and I'll be cranky and loud and furious until the day Homeland Security comes after tapping my phone and seizes my computer and my library for reading subversive documents like the Declaration of Independence. Because that's my right.

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*Walt Kelly, in the comic strip "Pogo Possum, referring to the turmoil caused by the Vietnam War.