We owe the fallen warriors more then ever this Memorial Day. The ultimate sacrifices made by these fallen soldiers should be remembered and honored as we have never had the rights they died protecting under more serious attack.
Sometimes its easy to take their deaths as simply ‘casualties of war’. Particularly if they aren’t friends or relatives. They can get acknowledged as nameless, faceless stone markers in a cemetery. Never let that happen. Think of them as fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters who had lives every bit as real as ours. Take a moment today to appreciate their sacrifice so we can continue living a life of freedom and liberty they’ll never enjoy.
Consider how much we value those freedoms and the cost of attaining and maintaining them. Understand how we’re seeing those freedoms taken from us under the guise of being ‘protected’ from ourselves. This virus that’s infecting the world is changing our lives in ways we’ll never appreciate if we don’t pay attention.
Our state campgrounds have been closed with the excuse that traveling to the campground, gathering around a campfire and general association was too ‘dangerous’. Almost universally we’ve been denied the ability to shop in small shops and businesses while major big box stores continued operation as usual. The ultimate stupidity was an interview with the governor of Illinois announcing that power boats could take to the water but limiting occupancy of the boat to TWO people. Didn’t matter if you had a family of 3, only 2 of you could go out at once. And we can play golf now but can’t allow the golf ball to go into the hole. hunh????? The stupidity and inconsistencies go on. We all have our stories.
In our small community businesses are being devastated. Memorial Day weekend is the opening day for our tourist season, which is our life blood. At a local cemetery there was discussion of abandoning a Memorial Day tradition called the Avenue of Flags. Hundreds of flags lined the main avenue of the cemetery in recognition of our fallen heroes. Fortunately, sound minds prevailed and the tradition was continued. The city has however, cancelled our summer Water Carnival. The week long celebration depended on donations from local businesses to make things happen. With your business shut down, that’s a tough commitment to make. Our 4th of July Celebration depends on similar donations and at this point that event is uncertain.
I’ve tried to take a semi-active roll by communicating with our state and federal representatives. Our Governor has declared his concern for his constituents so last week I sent him an email expressing my ‘disappointment’ in his lack of logical thinking. In response I received a boiler plate auto reply stating his concern and informing me that he had decided to extend the shutdown through May 15. The disgusting thing was my email was dated over a week after that date. The Governor’s office was so concerned about our well being they evidently didn’t have time to update their auto response email.
The media has done a brilliant job of convincing a large percentage of the population that their certainty of infection and death is imminent. What the press fails to do is take the time to break down the statistics and share that information with equal zeal. It’s much more exciting to present a body count without any statistical reference to reality. I’m not without sympathy or compassion for those infected or deceased, but the reality is this is not as bad as it might appear.
If your afraid to go out without a mask, don’t. If you have underlying health conditions use caution. If your afraid of being with a group, by all means avoid groups. But this is not a one size fits all problem.
Our situation in rural Northern Minnesota is not the same as Minneapolis/St Paul. In some ways I think we have more common sense up here and a tendency to take care of ourselves. We can be pretty independent and don’t wait for the government to extend a ‘helping hand’. We don’t have to be told the stove is hot so don’t touch it. In other words, we’re capable of using good judgement without heavy handed direction. Let us exercise our rights to gather, practice our religion, participate in commerce and generally go about life. These are the general principals our country is founded on. Don’t make self determination a nasty phrase.
So you might ask what this has to do with Memorial Day. Since the founding of our country our military has successfully defended our rights and freedoms from attacks from all directions. The cost in human lives is staggering. Those fallen soldiers deserve our respect and in return we have an obligation to do our part to protect those rights they died for as well. Lets honor those fallen warriors by being warriors in our own right. At the very least speak up and speak out.
