Please reflect on the meaning of Memorial Day, as you enjoy your long weekend

PHOTOS: Child gives emotional plea at grave of Marine father Christian resting by his father's grave on Memorial Day. CNN

TAT readers,

I encourage all of you to make time this long weekend, to honor those who have given their full measure of devotion, to our nation and its declared values. They have gifted all citizens,’ the time to honor the responsibility of citizenship by pursuing a future, built on the foundation of those values. Those fallen heroes, deserve at least this much commitment from all of us. Every citizen must now pick up the baton, at the feet of each fallen hero and carry it into a future that honors their sacrifice to the morality our nation was founded upon.

1. Liberty is a remarkably heavy load to bear when borne by few, especially for those who hailed the call to pick up that baton in the first place. The load of liberty grows far lighter when carried by all, not just those serving in uniform. This is where every citizen must step up and bear their share of the burden, that the fallen can no longer carry.

The state of our American Republic, through the eyes and words of our founders (truthaboutthreats.com)

Liberty gives wings to the soul, of every free human being. We all should be inspired to carry, protect and nourish such a treasure. All of us must be made to understand that all of their opportunity, springs from the lifeblood of liberty, so preciously purchased in blood. Our national values, including our constitutional rights, are largely built on a foundation of cutting edge thinking about human rights, society, morality etc., more precisely, the brilliant, inalienable rights enumerated so carefully by Thomas Jefferson, in our Declaration of Independence.

Those rights, born of the moral philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, carefully laid out the truth of what it means to be a citizen of liberty. In fact, inalienable rights cannot exist without liberty. This is what I would like everyone to consider over the weekend, as you go about enjoying family and friends. After all, we all remember Jefferson’s line in our Declaration of Independence, about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Our Founding Fathers were "Woke" and also... radical progressives, for their time.

“That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

- Declaration of Independence
- Thomas Jefferson
- July 4th, 1776

Don’t listen to the political definitions of patriotism. They are very often, poorly framed inferences that suggest different meanings to patriotism than those found in our founding documents. In truth, there are no Republican values and democratic values, but only American values. Invest a handful of minutes on your phone and search for constitution.org and you will find out the truth. Another excellent project is the Avalon Project at Yale. Truth and our founding values, were and always will be so precious as to require investments of blood and treasure to sustain it, just as we did during the Civil War, WW II etc.

As the word, “United” implies in the name of our nation, liberty requires unity over the precious gold of our inalienable rights, but first we must have honest understanding of those rights. This is why we must forgo the madness of listening to so many of those who peddle fake patriotism rather than what Jefferson wrote about in our Declaration of Independence and James Madison codified in both our constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Who are we, as Americans

The more we pay attention to “who we are as a nation,” The lighter our load becomes. Concurrently, the stronger our resilience towards those who would divide us with falsities, grows. This requires a dedication to truth, not parties. As Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Hamilton, Adams and far more required, investing in being literate in our form of government, not factions, as political parties were referred to in early America, would ensure the survival of our nascent republic.

Civics or not Civics, that is the question. (truthaboutthreats.com)

The above is but the minimum requirement for citizenship in our republic, lit with the torch of lady liberty but occasionally stumbling on the path forward towards embodying our stated goals. Good citizenship is what will sustain the memories of those lost on the battlefield of freedom. I have friends, military brothers and sisters lost on that battlefield, and every one of them were extraordinary as, human beings, professionals and as citizens, devoted to the highest ideals of our Great Experiment. I will mourn them this weekend, which is always difficult, but will also include heaping doses of gratitude for what they did for all of us.

This weekend, like most of America, I will enjoy the life, those we memorialize, helped pay for and, as has long been family tradition to do via a quiet visit to our San AntonioNational Cemetery. My parents, both Veterans, lie there, side-by-side beneath those stark white stones, among thousands of other Veterans. I will take time to pause with them, sitting quietly before their headstones in the pristinely maintained grass and offer inexhaustible gratitude to their neighbors interred there.

On Veteran’s Day and the many days between it, and the Memorial Day holiday, I will visit again, sitting in the soft grass, chatting with my parents and this weekend’s heroes. There are other dear friends interred there as well, who will also merit a visit. As I walk the neatly lined rows, decorated with flags, and other mementos of love and appreciation, I will breathe the air of freedom, the very gift that those we memorialize this weekend, gifted us all.

My warmest wishes for a thoroughly wonderful and reflective holiday.

Paul

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