Memorial Weekend – Time To Remember What They Died For

By definition Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died in the performance of their military duties while serving in the United States Armed Forces.

They made the ultimate sacrifice so our great experiment in freedom could be protected and preserved.  PBS breaks it down like this:

While we remember their sacrifice, let's reflect on how we are using that precious freedom with our fellow Americans.

We are a divided nation today, as we were in the 1860's. But about 100 years before that we weren't so close either, leading George Washington to say in 1785  -"We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.”

I prefer unity but honestly, don't see it coming about. I can live with that but what I can't stand is "acting the farce" as Washington put it.  Mr. President Biden, don't say you want "UNITY" and then act as you do.  It's a farce.

One of the things that divides us today is our border policy.  There is no effort made at finding unity there.  Not much effort made at finding the truth either.

From the Patriot Post “The border is closed,” asserted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during his testimony before the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. Despite the number of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. over the past three months hitting record highs, Mayorkas insisted that there is no migrant “invasion.”

It's a lie.  You know it, I know it, the American People know it, and we see it for ourselves on the nightly news. (at least on some channels)

Mayorkas insisted. “The president could not have been clearer in his articulation of this administration’s position, nor could I have been clearer and continue to be so, which is the border is closed, and this administration administers and enforces the laws of the United States of America — and that is not only the laws of accountability but also the humanitarian laws that Congress passed years ago.”

It couldn't be clearer alright!  I get it. I know our military men and women who died in the service of America fought and died so that we all could be free to be just how we want to be...to be of good character or to be selfish jerks, both and more are on the table in a free country. It's worse than too bad that includes the freedom to lie right to our faces by elected leaders and their agents.

There is so much more to say about not squandering our freedom, but I'll give the last word to historian Victor Davis Hanson who is also writing for the Patriot Post.

“From March 2020 to spring of 2021, the country went through a mass hysteria. Despite its ideological pretensions, the collective insanity was not unlike .... the June bug epidemic paranoia of 1962.***  But as Americans sober up, will they institutionalize or reject the frenzy remaining from the destructive stampede that took the country over the cliff during the most unhinged year in American history?”

GREAT question.  Our brave military paid the ultimate price for our freedom.  SO how are we going to use it?  Those in power at present seem to want to lock in the product of that paranoia from the last year of insanity.  If we do that, if we don't reject the crazy, then when considering Memorial day, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, - Never will so many have given so much...for so little.

Have a right proper Memorial Day Weekend.

***(Wikipedia - The June bug epidemic serves as a classic example of hysterical contagion. In 1962 a mysterious disease broke out in a dressmaking department of a US textile factory. The symptoms included numbness, nausea, dizziness and vomiting. Word of a bug in the factory that would bite its victims and cause them to develop the above symptoms quickly spread....after research by company physicians and experts...it was concluded that the case was one of  mass hysteria).