We Americans are getting ready to celebrate July 4th, the 233rd birthday of our country, Independence Day. The French feature their Bastille Day of freedom on July 14. Is there more concern with who’s bringing the hot dogs and baguettes to the July 4th picnic than with what liberty really means? Is there more concern with a postage stamp-size place at La Jolla Shores or Mission Bay, where folks battle for blanket space, than how our forefathers and foremothers began the struggle for freedom in 1776? “Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better,” French writer Albert Camus said. With the green revolution in Iran’s capital city of Tehran snowballing since the June 12 election allegedly “stolen” from Mir Hussein Moussavi, the moderate reform candidate, it is a reminder to us Americans that the hunger for real freedom lives on in the 21st-century sights and sounds on Facebook, Twitter, My Space and YouTube videos and photos. Guns and tear gas, clubs and water cannon can’t keep the freedom-loving masses from pouring into the streets of Tehran. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” according to Martin Luther King. The courageous Iranian citizens have been nonstop in challenging Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with shouts of “Death to the dictator” and “God is great.” The desire for freedom is like a small stream gathering steam and size as it races to the ocean. Think back to the oppressive King George III in England and Louis XVI in France and how the power of the people prevailed. Thirty years ago, the United States severed ties with Iran when the Shah was overthrown in 1979 and the establishment of an Islamic republic became law. Today the world is far different with the onset of technology. Sneeze in Tehran and you hear a “God bless you” in San Diego and Paris. Stand up for freedom in Tehran and Americans, French and the rest of the free world stand up for you, or do we? This year on July 4th we are free to move about. We are free. We can go to the beach. We are free. We can go to the fair. We are free. We can stay home and join our neighbors at the U.C. Celebration at Standley Park or swim at La Jolla Cove. We are free. Out of respect to those who don’t have this precious gift handed down from one generation to the next by birthright from those men and women who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, this year we Americans may want to pause and thank all who have gone before in the name of freedom and all who serve in the military today. In awe of this generation of freedom-loving Iranian folks who demand Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, as the French did in 1789. Let’s talk with our children and grandchildren about the gift of freedom. After 233 years, a similar revolution in Iran is boiling up, running over and won’t be stopped, hopefully. The American Revolution, the French Revolution and all other revolutions have come at great expense, as does the Iranian green revolution: lost lives, dashed hopes and brutal responses. Young people in Tehran are proving the Declaration of Independence is a living message, even in their world of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube: “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.”