Today is Memorial Day. A day set aside to honor those who died defending our country and the freedoms we enjoy. Have you thought today about the debt we owe to those who gave all to defend our way of life? Have you reflected today on what a great country we live in? Have you thought about what could have been, if we had not won such fights as our fight for independence, or the two World Wars?
Or maybe you spent the day having a picnic, eating barbeque and going to the lake or to a pool party. Maybe you went on a Jeep or motorcycle run. Maybe you spend Memorial Day just having fun, and taking for granted the rights and freedoms that have been purchased at such a high price.
Possibly, you are part of another camp that has been showing up in my social media feed this weekend. This camp says things like “maybe slave owning men, who would not recognize a dishwasher, were not really so smart, so the constitution isn’t that important”. Yes, that was in my news feed today.
I served in the military for 20 years. I know of many who have paid that ultimate price. I was lucky that sacrifice was never asked of me, but when I joined the military, I signed a blank check for any value up to my life, to pay for our freedom. And I would do it again in a heart-beat to protect the freedoms that we all enjoy in this country. But for the first time, it seems like the enemy we are going to have to defend against is already within our borders, and already our citizens. People who want to shred the constitution and the bill of rights for some fantasy of a country that takes care of their every need at the expense of others. And they are willing to buy what the snake oil salesmen are offering.
The salesmen are generating fear, and then trying to sell us the cure. Whether the fear be of COVID, Monkeypox, mass shootings, terrorists, criminals, inflation, computer hackers, racism or tomorrow’s fear du jour, the snake oil that they offer to cure the disease is to give up our freedoms, our rights, and our way of living. Just give everything to us, and all will be well. The savvy ones know that this utopia cannot exist, but so many are falling for the scams, that the snake oil salesmen are likely to get what they want, control over our way of life, without a single shot being fired in defense.
Let’s talk about the latest fear, the mass shooting of children in a school in Texas. Everybody is immediately jumping out there in an attempt to use this tragedy to take away the freedom that they don’t want us to have. Or at least to take it away from those they don’t want to have it, because they might use it to try to stop the next freedom from being taken away. Many want to use this event to take away guns. The ones pushing the message know very well that taking away our guns will not solve the problem. But that is the freedom they want to take away.
I am going to use this topic as a way of talking about all of the fear mongering that keeps being pushed on us. While there is most definitely a problem, in this case one of 15-30 year old males willing to kill innocent victims, the media overemphasize the problem and then experts jump at solutions that match our biases. Instead we need to do true science that helps us to really understand why this is happening, what has changed to cause it to start happening, and what we can do to reverse that trend. I myself could come up with at least 2 dozen different theories of why these school shootings happen now, when they were unheard of when I was in school. But that is all they are, theories. Maybe some have merit. Maybe some are just a conspiracy. But the only way to know is to study it objectively without bias.
Whatever the snake oil salesmen want, they will twist everything into fitting their narrative, with no real evidence or logic. Anything the government wants to push on us, they will twist to meet their narrative, with no real evidence of logic. We need to stop twisting narratives, and start looking for true solutions. Otherwise, we will soon be too far down the path to even have a shot at stopping the takeover that will be World War 3, and our freedom will be lost without a single shot fired in defense.
Getting back to today, Memorial Day. The other unofficial meaning of Memorial Day is a celebration of the beginning of summer. So go ahead and have that picnic get together, remembering that last year you might not have had the freedom to do so. Go ahead and get out on your boat with family and friends, remembering that freedom was taken away, too. Go ahead and use and enjoy the freedoms that we have in this country just as you want to. After all, this country was established as a free country. I just ask that you reflect on why this country is great. I ask you to reflect on the freedoms that you enjoy. I ask you to reflect on those who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we may have those freedoms. And finally, I ask if you can identify with the words from the song:
I am proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me. And I’d gladly stand up, next to you to defend her still today. Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land.
Lee Greenwood
If you can identify with those words, then I ask when it comes time to vote this year, that you vote to defend freedom, rather than to sell your freedom to some snake oil salesman who promises safety from the fears they have instilled in you.