Watch the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, and you’ll understand what Memorial Day is all about. We are honoring the men and women who have laid down their lives fighting to protect our rights and our freedoms.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. These soldiers who we honor today have been vigilant on our behalf. There will always be somebody or something that wants to take our rights and freedoms from us, and these soldiers have been there fighting for us on many different battle fields.
At 3PM today, we are supposed to stop whatever we are doing for a minute of silence to honor those who have perished fighting for us. But let’s not leave it at one minute on one day. We can honor these soldiers every day of our lives by exercising our rights, they laid down their lives protecting, responsibly and honorably.
We do have freedom of speech in this country, freedom of the press. Simply because we can say or print whatever we want, does not mean we should. I do not believe in government censorship, or censorship by the mob, but I do believe in self-censorship. We honor the right of freedom of speech and freedom of the press by exercising these freedoms responsibly and constructively. Destructive and irresponsible speech, such as name-calling and fake news, dishonors these men and women.
I believe in the right to bear arms, but exercising that right responsibly, not cavalierly. The guy with enough stockpiles of guns and ammo in his basement to arm a small army, and recklessly wields it, dishonors the soldiers who died for our right to bear arms as much as the politician who wants to ban guns. Every time a gun is used in a commission of a crime, disrespects the soldier who died protecting the 2nd Amendment. And maybe, if we exercised our rights more responsibly and constructively then there wouldn’t be politicians trying to take our rights away.
And let’s also take some time to think about the Gold Star families, the parents, the wives and husbands, the children of those who have fallen protecting us and our rights. Their sacrifice and loss is unending. Not only did they spend months and years going to bed every night not knowing if their loved one will be killed while they slept, they now must deal with this gigantic hole in their lives, and in their heart the rest of their days. Take a moment to think about and pray for them as well.
In the end, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. And we not only have to be vigilant against foreign enemies who want to take our rights, but also the insidious enemies of irresponsibility and arrogance which will erode our rights.