Everyone have a fun and safe Independence Day. If you're taking a break from beer and bar-b-ques, check out Col. Oliver North's wonderful article on the American Patriots.

Entire article quoted below:

On the Fourth of July, only a handful of Americans will pause to commemorate the anniversary of our nation's independence. I used to think it was a shame, how little attention was paid to our national birthday. But on reflection, I've decided it's good that we not dwell on the people and events that gave rise to this little holiday. First, it's not politically correct. The "founders" as they are sometimes called, were all men -- white men -- and crediting white men with anything today just doesn't wash. Second, a careful examination of that handful of patriots who gathered 224 years ago this week to sign that Declaration of Independence invites too many discomfiting comparisons with today's political leaders.

Few Americans know that the Declaration was actually drafted by a committee of five: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Philip Livingston, Roger Sherman, and of course, Thomas Jefferson. Fewer still know that most of the work on the document was done between June 10 and July 2 (when the Continental Congress actually resolved to declare independence from Great Britain) in a boarding house at the intersection of Market and 7th Streets in Philadelphia. The draft document was so good that when debate ended late on July 4, the larger body made but 86 changes, eliminating 480 words, and leaving 1,337 of the most dramatic words in any political manifesto.

The Declaration is far more than an assertion of freedom or a bill of particulars levied at a tyrant. No other founding document for any nation reflects on "the laws of nature and of nature's God." No other proclamation declares that all people are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." No other national manuscript appeals to "the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions." And no other mechanism of national design or intent places the fate of its founders in the hand of God with words like this: "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor." Good thing they weren't writing this stuff in a public school!

In an era when Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are revered revolutionaries, the 56 who signed the Declaration just don't cut the mustard. They were all men of means, well educated and wealthy by the standards of the day. Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists; 11 were successful merchants and traders; 9, like Jefferson, were prosperous farmers. Nine of them would die before the war was over; 5 were captured and tortured by the British and 12 had their homes looted and destroyed.

Neither John Morton of Pennsylvania nor Button Gwinnett, the signer from Georgia, would live to see the first anniversary of their signatures. Philip Livingston, the merchant from Albany, New York who served on Jefferson's drafting committee, was dead before the second anniversary. Thomas Lynch, a farmer from South Carolina died of wounds received in a 1797 naval engagement.

Carter Braxton, a wealthy trader from Virginia saw his armada of trading vessels swept from the seas in battle. To pay his debts, he sold all that he owned and died in rags in 1797.

Thomas McKean, a lawyer from Delaware, served without pay as a member of the Continental Congress. The British forced him to flee with his impoverished family five times during the war. When he died in 1817, his sons had to take up a collection from their neighbors to pay for his funeral.

Thomas Nelson of Yorktown, Virginia borrowed 2 million dollars to provision the French Fleet that would eventually come to our aid. After the war he liquidated his entire estate to pay back the money he borrowed because the Congress refused to reimburse him. He died penniless in 1789.

John Hart, a New Jersey farmer was driven from his wife's sickbed by a British patrol and lived on the run for more than a year. Upon learning that his beloved wife was failing, he took the terrible chance of returning home to find her dead and his children gone. When he died a few weeks later, on May 11, 1779, his friends said it was of a broken heart.

John Hancock, the merchant from Quincy, Massachusetts, claimed that his bold signature would allow King George to read it without spectacles. When the British burned the port that made him rich, Hancock was reported to have said: "Burn, Boston, though it makes John Hancock a beggar, burn!"

All 56 signers were hunted, hounded and declared criminals. All were indicted, tried in absentia for treason, and all were convicted and condemned. Yet, despite all they endured, not one man broke his pledge.