Memorial Day in the Post-American Republic

The honor implied by Memorial Day is not for fighting in wars; it’s because soldiers fought for FREEDOM. Honor consists of standing up for yourself and your loved ones, and — in the process — for the rights of all. In the last year or more, we have watched with horror and disgust as millions of free people eagerly and gleefully welcome the onset of tyranny. They wear their face diapers and applaud open anarchy, defunding of police, violation of individual privacy, open violation of election laws, hyperinflationary spending, debasement of the military, and looting in the streets, all in the name of showing how “virtuous” they are, by an utterly insane and depraved standard of virtue. Through it all, millions of others stand bewildered, confused and horrified, but unsure of what to do.

And now we’re supposed to celebrate our nation’s virtue, rationality and freedom on the occasion of Memorial Day.

On the one hand, it makes sense to treasure the noble efforts of those who fought for freedom, to treasure those efforts now more than ever before. When you begin to lose something valuable, you appreciate it even more. But it’s also horrifying to think that these people who died and suffered in past wars — for their own freedom, of course, but also to preserve freedom for all time — would have died for the likes of what we’re witnessing today. So Joe Biden can stack the Supreme Court and ruin what’s left of our economy? So Kamala Harris can snicker and sneer giving a commencement address at the distinguished Naval Academy in Annpolis as she participates in the dismantling of our republic, and openly licks her chops at the prospect of finishing the job herself very soon (she hopes)?

But here we are. Those of us who still value our freedom and liberty, and the uplifting stature of man such a condition implies — the things these soldiers fought for — have been victimized by tyranny, election fraud, a ruined small business economy, daily censorship by government-connected oligarchs and so much else. The challenge, going forward, is not to think or act like victims. We must do what those soldiers did, in our own way and as circumstances require: Reassert the value of individual rights and defy, antagonize, resist, nullify, ignore, secede, disobey and ultimately defeat the forces of evil. As Winston Churchill would say: Never, ever, ever give up. If the Brits could endure the subway tunnels as the Nazis bombed London in World War II, surely we can figure out a way to resist Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi. If we can’t defeat such unworthy adversaries, then maybe we deserve what we get.

In a way, it’s tougher today than during World War II and the Cold War. The Nazis never took over the nation’s capital of the United States; and the Soviets never bombed it. But today’s enemies of freedom are now in office, wielding arbitrary power they intend never, ever to relinquish. We are an occupied nation, even if some of us (in understandable psychological denial) still think we’re not.

Those brave soldiers fought and died for victory over the tyrants in Britain, the slave-holding South, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Communist Russia and the totalitarian Middle East. Now we have to figure out a way to defeat the enemies in our midst. That’s the spirit in which a decent person can celebrate Memorial Day, as well as other great American holidays, going forward: as a nod to the past and the hoped-for future, but not for the present at all.

 

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