Yesterday was tax day, I filed in early February so instead of scrambling to finish up my taxes, my thoughts wandered towards how expensive it is to run our country and what we spend money on. A hop, skip and jump later I was thinking about the old saying “Freedom is not free”. But this isn’t a tax rant, sadly we’re actively fighting two wars right this second. There are incredibly brave American moms, dads, daughters and sons risking everything, willing to give anything. Wearing my parent hat, I can not imagine how this happens – I simply can’t get my head around it – full stop.
Nary a word in the press these days (go look right now on CNN.com’s home page, 200 links and nothing about either war) and most Americans here at home lead a normal day-to-day life (Yesterday, I started my day with a celebratory tweet about free coffee at Starbuck, Wahoo!) – probably without much thought about our friends and family in harms way. There are generations of people, many millions, that have similarly given to help us live in a great global society.
Freedom is certainly not free. There are plenty of ways, easy ways, to reach out and help or simply say thank you.
One response
I agree Chip. Thinking about things in this light, certainly puts everything into perspective. As a parent of a young child (soon to be 2 children) and someone who understands what drives the media ($$), I want to make sure that I teach my children to dig a bit deeper (see what else is going on beyond simply today's headlines) as well as to question what it is that they read. I guess the other requirement is to make my kids aware that not everyone else in the world lives like we do and to make sure we appreciate those that help us to maintain this quality of life.