The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is approaching quickly.

The document—as I often point out to my listeners—is, to quote Abraham Lincoln, an “apple of gold” protected by the “frame of silver” that is the Constitution he borrowed from Psalms there.

All Americans—indeed all the free world—have a lot to celebrate in this our 250th year of independence.

The Declaration asserted the existence of "rights" of individuals that exist before any government — no matter the form of that government— comes into being:

“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.”

The great day of the fourth is, from beginning to end, about love of our country because our country defends our individual rights, rights derived—back to the Declaration— from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.”

It is quite a gift that we have been given—a gift that needs to be defended.