As we watch the Egyptians celebrate the overthrow of a dictatorial tyranny in Cairo it might be good as we celebrate the day on which we asserted our own freedom from tyranny to consider what freedoms our Founders secured for us that are being jeopardized today.
Over the last five years we've seen several assaults by the Obama administration on the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech and the press (1st amendment); the freedom to bear arms (2nd amendment); the freedom to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects from unreasonable search and seizure, and the freedom to not have our privacy invaded without probable cause (4th amendment).
Moreover, the protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness guaranteed under the 5th amendment continues to be flouted by those who wish to deny that protection to the unborn, and the rights of the states to determine their own destiny as long as it doesn't conflict with the power granted specifically to the federal government (10th amendment) continues to be eroded by an ever-metastasizing federal state.
Mr. Obama has professed that the U.S. takes no side in the Egyptian struggle between the people yearning to be free and a tyrant fighting to keep his boot on their necks. It's odd that he would say this since he had no reluctance to side with the people when they were seeking to depose Hosni Mubarak a couple of years ago.
Our president has also expressed his deep concern that the Egyptian military stepped in to show Mohammed Morsi the door. I wonder if his concern is rooted in a presentiment that Americans, too, might be willing to tolerate only so many amputations of their freedoms, and that "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evince a design to reduce them (our rights) under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
This is what we're witnessing in Egypt. Let's pray on this Independence Day that it doesn't come to that here.