It is Memorial Day which means that we must endure ceaseless sermonizing on the "sacrifices of our soldiers" with accompanying platitudes such as "freedom is not free." We are supposed to honor you, our "brave men and women serving in the Armed Forces" who are "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." You men and women are sacrificing your lives "to defend our freedoms," and we, the faithful citizens, should make our pilgrimage to the Holy Capital City to genuflect at one of the many shrines devoted to their heroism. However, I must say that I am baffled because I do not know which freedoms you brave men and women are defending.
Thanks to the Patriot Act, among other laws, we have no right to privacy or free speech. Thanks to Congress and various States, our right to keep and bear arms is frequently infringed upon. Thanks to the TSA, the FBI, the DEA, the ICE, and local police we have no right to be secure in persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Thanks to the war on drugs, our government can deprive us of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. Thanks to the Supreme Court, private property be taken for public or private use without just compensation. Thanks to the monopoly on justice by the State, we cannot have speedy trials. Thanks to corrupt prosecutors, our bail and fines are excessive. And given that most laws punish noncrimes such as drug abuse, gun possession, prostitution, intellectual property, insider trading, speeding, redlight running, "illegal" u-turns, "illegal" left-turns, operating a business without a license, not sending your children to public schools, underage drinking, etc., etc., etc., punishments are necessarily cruel and unusual.
How can you expect me to honor your sacrifices in defense of our freedom when our own government threatens a family with a $4 million fine for selling bunnies? Or when our own police raid family homes, terrorize the residents and shoot their dogs? Or when our own prosecutors frame people to win convictions? Just whose freedoms are you defending because you sure as hell are not protecting mine.
If you really want me to honor your sacrifice, then actually begin defending my life, liberty, and property. I don't need defense from brown people in distant countries who want to attack the U.S. in retaliation for our Federal Government's evil foreign policy that you, dear soldiers, help enforce. I need defense from this dishonest, insane, and intolerable Federal Government and its vassal States that continue to devour everything that is true, honest, just, lovely, and of good report; all these things our Federal Government and its vassals ferociously attack while you do nothing to stop them. When you actually realize this is who the real enemy of liberty is, then you will truly defend our freedoms and your sacrifices will be worthy of honor.
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