On this Independence Day, consider the virtue of independence in your own personal life.

Great American, and Russia-born, author Ayn Rand expressed the essence of independence at such a personal level, when she wrote in For the New Intellectual:

“Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it—that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life—that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.”  – “Galt’s Speech,” p. 128; via Lexicon

In that context, including your life, and in light of the present conditions within the United States, listen again to The Declaration of Independence, and in particular the violations of individual rights committed by the English King.