war – David Vaszko's Blog

Today, March 6, is one of the most important days in our history. On this day in 1836 about one hundred and fifty Americans died fighting for freedom on a piece of property that was not theirs, as they sought to claim Texas from a nation that did not have the ambition to settle and deveolop that territory.

Many people think the battle at the Alamo was just another attempt by the United States or American citizens to steal land that belonged to someone else. They feel that the Texans lusted for a fight, that they were hypocrites for believing in slavery while fighting for freedom.

All these points might be true. But there is something important to remember: the Texans had everything to gain economically if they won, but if they lost, and they knew they would lose, they would have died fighting for freedom and against injustice.

These men had faith in freedom, faith in America, faith in each other. They had faith in destiny, faith in justice and faith in several hundred other Texans and Americans who never showed up to help them. These men kept their faith, knowing they were fighting for something greater than themselves.

It is hard for today’s Americans to think that a bunch of drunks, wife leavers and vagabonds would die for something greater than themselves. But they are heroes.

They are heroes because they did more than run away from their problems and responsibilities. If they had no intention of paying their debts or sending the family out when they got rich in Texas, the fact that they died so others could come to Texas and get rich, or at least start a better life, redeemed them.

My fellow citizens, Western Civilization is founded upon redemption and freedom. Most of the men at the Alamo abused their freedom, but made up for it when they put their future money where their mouths were and died for it.

In America today, we too have abused our freedom. We have gotten fat and sassy. But unlike the men at the Alamo, our arrogance has not tranmsformed into courage.

We need faith in each other to rise to the ocassion to fight our own battle as the chips are down, to redeem ourselves from our acceptance of the tyranny my predecessors have imposed.

Now, a moment of silence, for the men who died at the Alamo.

This afternoon we commemorate Memorial Day.

Originally we observed Memorial Day to honor those who died in the Civil War. But as America engaged in more wars, it became our obligation to remember the militrary personnel who died in them.

I want first to talk about the Civil War. It was the event that shattered America’s image of itself. One historian wrote that people who had been raised to ask God for the grace to be a martyr, to die for His goodness without being violent, were called upon to be killers.

It was no longer just plantation owners and professional soldiers who were violent but one million or more men. As so many people said afterward, we lost our innocence, the belief that nothing bad could happen to us – especially something caused by ourselves.

Think what wars do. The Civil War made us realize we had stooped to the barbarism we always associated with Europe.

World War I destroyed the freeedom of movement between countries. In the United States civil liberties were removed. If you criticized the war or America’s foreign policy, you were arrested.

After World War II, rather than glory in our freedom we continued to wage war. Criticism of the mililtary and of foreign policy was dangerous. One could be branded a traitor for criticizing the nuclear arms race.

Our prosperity allowed us to forget the government’s suspicion of us. We trusted each other. We did not live in fear.

With Vietnam came division among us we had not experienced since the 1860s. The Vietnam War made America feel that we failed, that not only did we lose, we were wrong and we deserved to lose.

We became confident in the wrong way. We glorified drugs and cheap sex. We disrespected authority.

We felt that since the war was lost and also unjust, the government would learn its lesson.

While the government was supposedly learning its lesson, Americans abused personal freedom with as few qualms as those who waged the Vietnam War.

Then two Iraq wars revealed that we as a nation had not learned either a moral lesson, a political lesson or a constitutional lesson from Vietnam. Americans embraced each Iraq war, though each was unnecessary.

The sad thing about the Iraq wars was that our consumerism could not cancel out the government’s disrespect and mistrust of us. We lost our trust in each other at the same time we lost most of our civil liberties.

We were not able to see that if the government does not want you to be free, the next step is it won’t want you to be comfortable. The government that wants you afraid will eventually want you hungry.

Somebody just shouted, What’s the point? This.

War destroys civil liberties. It creates mistrust and cynicism. Our wars are claimed to be fought for freedom, but with each war people become less free.

In these cynical times it is easy to dismiss those who died for freedom because now we have little freedom. It is tempting to say their deaths have been a waste.

Likewise, those who passionately celebrate Memorial Day refuse to recognize how unfree America is. It is very difficult for my administration to try to bring freedom back to America and to keep the hawks in check.

We need to realize that battlefields are only one place where freedom is defended. The function of a battlefield is to protect freedom from foreign armies. Our heroes did their part.

We must do ours.

Fight for freedom at city council meetings, at the state legislature, at the offices of senators and representatives. Tell them you do not want to take loyalty oaths or be filmed all the time.

Meet with police departments and justice departments. Tell the officials their officers will be shot if they enter your house because they think you are suspicious. Tell them you will not answer questions about your neighbors.

But it isn’t just confrontation that preserves freedom. It is also lilfestyles. Our way of life does not preserve and encourage freedom. I read in a financial newspaper that democracies only work when citizens are not greedy.

I take this to mean if citizens are greedy, they do not pay attention to government.

When we decrease our shopping, as well as our fear of each other, we will start to feel what it’s like to be free. Then we will realize the military and law enforcement have attained too much power, that we foolishly assumed more laws and surveillance would protect us, that we are more afraid every year.

On this Memorial Day I want you my fellow citizens, to think about our heroes in a different way. If diplomacy fails to restore freedom, you owe it to them to dismantle our police state – physically, even if you have to strangle your brother who is an officer for Homeland Security or your sister who sells surveillance equipment to DHS.

The nation is in a crisis. There is no innocence to lose. Only gullibililty, deception and constant cowering.

If we do not rise against this police state, America will have failed, and will have failed with great cowardice, our courageous heroes.

Tag: war

Presidential address: The alamo

The President Speaks: Memorial Day