By Erica and Karen

July 4. Independence Day. A beautiful day is forecast in New York City, and like lots of people we are planning to celebrate outdoors, with hot dogs and burgers and our annual gin and tonic. Maybe we will be able to see the fireworks.

But we don't want to forget what we are celebrating. Our forebears threw off the yoke of a dominant superpower so that this country could have its own life and make its own way. Revolution, bloody and necessary, was the first step toward the birth of a country that itself became a modern superpower, thanks in great part to governing documents that are genius in their simplicity.

The force of the Declaration of Independence still guides us. Our history foretells our future. We raise our gin and tonics, and light our sky, to those who, in the course of human events, chose to take the steps that gave birth to our nation and articulated the principles that still move this country forward.