When we celebrate the Fourth of July this weekend with our parades, fireworks and barbecues, we should all take a moment to think about what is happening in Iran.

During the past couple weeks, the world has been watching in horror as the religious-based government of Iran has violently cracked down on its own people in the aftermath of a highly contested presidential election.

Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets to protest what appears to have been a bogus election. For standing up for freedom, they have been beaten with clubs, arrested and even shot.

Their actions should be a reminder of the challenges faced by the American patriots who braved everything to gain their independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution.

When our forefathers put pen to paper and signed their names to a document in a way there would be no mistaking their intent, they declared to King George III, and all his British subjects, we are Americans and we are our own masters. The Declaration of Independence, signed by 56 brave souls on July 4, 1776, was an act of defiance heard round the world.

And like the Iranian government has done recently, the British crown, with its great military, used every means including violence to try and quell the uprising. They broke into homes, made arrests and murdered those who chose to side with freedom over blind loyalty to the king.

The brave souls in Iran, who are taking to the streets in the face of thuggish violence, are looking for the same thing as our forefathers — self-determination and liberty. It is something that we have probably come to take for granted in America. But the freedom that our forefathers gave all subsequent generations of Americans did not come free. George Washington and his ragtag army overcame immense odds to win that freedom for us.

Watching the protestors in Iran wave the color green — whether on their flags, the ribbons tied around their arms or the burkas covering their heads — should also remind us what our American flag symbolizes. When the patriots waved that flag, with its 13 stars, it was a defiant act against the crown, one that risked great peril.

So wave the Stars and Stripes with great pride this weekend, and take comfort in the fact that we are the heirs to one of the great uprisings in man’s struggle for liberty and freedom. And let’s hope the people of Iran come to know such freedoms.