Freedom Isn't Free

I just watched a program about the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.  The wall wasn't built to celebrate war, but those young men and women that were willing to fight for our country.  This was even when the war wasn't understood and the soldiers underappreciated  at the time.  The other day one of my fellow Vietnam Vets said that a guy told him, "Its a shame we lost that war."   He said that the country gave up, not the soldiers.  Had we played by the rules of WWII, we could have won but the cost could have been more than we were willing to pay.   It could have easily turned into a nuclear war and no one wanted that.

In retrospect, few wars are fought that don't cost us and other countries a dear price.  When the war in Iraq started, I asked just how much is that sand covered country worth in terms of the lives of our young men and women.  What would be the outcome when we realize that it takes a person like Saddam Hussein to keep the country together.  What would be the cost?

I say all this because there is a generation out there that has not had to pay the price for our freedoms.  There is a lot of the people that are willing to give up the basic tenets of our freedom and not stand up and protest.  I understand that the president is going to tell us tonight in the State of the Union that he is going to change the fundamental rules in Washington and expand the way he gets things done.  I think we already have given up too much of our freedoms and wonder when the backlash will begin?  

Have you noticed that the News Media focuses our attention on a few rogue shooters and ignore the hundreds of crimes done in the cities?  I will bet you that there are more gun related deaths in Chicago on a weekend than occur in 6 months in Kansas.  Where is the outrage about the failed policies that takes away the success the young men there should feel.   Where is the protest about the way things are done there?  Yep, they think they can solve the problem in Kansas by making it harder for me to own a gun and ignore the problem that we have a generation of people that are rapidly losing hope.  It is not the Mexican coming here to look for work that is the problem.  It is the border that allows drugs to flow in like water over the dam.  In fact it is not the drugs, but the conditions that makes our people use them to avoid looking at the conditions they live in. 

Don't tell me that we need to throw away the rules and laws to make it better.  Tell me what are the solutions you are going to attempt to apply to our problems?   We live in the most powerful country in the world and can't figure out how to build jobs where they are needed?  Shame on us.  Shame on us for re-electing the very people that are responsible for the conditions that got us where we are today.

I wish it were on record who said it first, but If you find yourself in a hole, Stop Digging.

MUD