As time goes by, languages change. Words and the way they are used change and their meanings can change. What sounded normal two hundred years ago can be hard to understand today. Ron Howson has given the clearest explanation I have ever read of the words in the Declaration of Independence. When you read the descriptions of the grievances, you will marvel, as I did, that our ancestors took so long to rebel. They were, as the Declaration states, reluctant to break from England. In their own words, from the Declaration: "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes... But ... The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries... all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states." The Declaration is not just one of the most important documents ever written for the United States, but for the entire world. The Declaration was a bold statement for the Rights of Man. It is possibly even more important today than it was then, which is why we should all know what it really meant and what the writers were really saying and why.