What Did You Sacrifice for Freedom?

What
Price Freedom, and the Way of Life We Have Enjoyed? Of the 56 Signers of the
Declaration of Independence:

-Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before
they died.

-Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

-Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons
captured.

-Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary
War.

-Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept
from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his
debts, and died in rags.

-Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his
family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family
was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him.

-Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton,
Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

-Legend
has it when Thomas Nelson Jr was told the British General Cornwallis had taken
over his home for British headquarters, he replied, "Blow the damn thing
down." Nelson's house is still standing at Yorktown
and there are cannonballs embedded in its east wall.

-Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his
wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart
was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for
their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a
year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and
his children vanished.

In a few years the Chinese can buy us out. Our net worth is
only $33 trillions and falling all the time. Our housing stock could subtract
$6 billions making our net worth $27 trillions. Already, we have a national
debt of $9 trillions, which takes us down to $18 trillions net worth.