Memorial Day is sad this year

[Johnny2X2X]

I have the utmost respect for people who fought and died wearing our nation’s uniform. They cannot be honored enough and we should do more for our still alive vets too.

But it really hits a place inside me when I hear and read endless people praising our fallen soldiers for dying for our freedom. First off all, most of the wars we’ve fought had nothing to do with preserving American freedom. We aren’t free because of World War I, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, or any other number of wars. The Revolutionary, Civil, and WWII were clearly about our freedom and have a direct line to the freedoms we still enjoy. Doesn’t mean all those wars were unnecessary, or I was against them, but just that they really had no tangible effect on freedom here.

And I think attributing our freedoms to dead soldiers misses the biggest cause of our freedom at home, people and movements who fight for our freedom daily and have done so through out our history. The Civil Rights movement, the abolitionists, the women’s suffrage movement, the labor movement, voting rights movement, gay marriage movement, and countless other movements are why we are free.

I thank our fallen soldiers for security, their sacrifices have allowed us the security to fight for and secure our freedoms. Security is important, but it’s not what gives us freedom, for that we must fight ourselves for it. You can have all the security in the world and not be free at all. And when I look at how in peril our fights for freedoms are today in America, I can’t help but feel sad that we’ve lost our way and the fallen soldiers are dishonored by the tyrants we have running our country right now.

So thank you to our heroes who died fighting for our country. But I grieve a little for the freedom we are losing at home right now.

[biophile]

1. Truth

[Maeve]

2. Praise for those in your second paragraph who died for freedom as well

Most of whom never intended to do so.

[Wild blueberry]

3. Exccellent post!

Thank you.

[generalbetrayus]

4. Non-military people have died for our freedoms, too, as noted in your paragraph three.

Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. I'm sure the list in longer.

[GiqueCee]

5. Ben Franklin said...

... "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
The King Bull Goose Loony of the current regime is ripping away both our liberty and safety because we didn't vote for him. He's a petty tyrant with the emotional maturity of a six-year-old who ignores the law and is utterly devoid of so much as a nanoparticle of common human decency.
He is blithely sacrificing our young servicemen and -women to a poorly planned war of choice just to distract from his crimes against young girls, though he claims it's to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon, which they were nowhere near having, and Sewer Rat Republicans are fine with it.
And when Sugar-daddy Putin says JUMP! he asks HOW HIGH? on the way down, because even though he can't even pronounce "Defenestration", he's justifiably terrified of it, because destroying America from the inside is why Putin made him President in the first place. And that's the only promise he's ever made that he plans to keep.