Find The Cost Of Freedom

"When the freedom they wished for most

was freedom from responsibility,

then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again."

–Edward Gibbon

The death toll in Syria continues to climb as a people fight for the same freedoms we no longer acknowledge or respect in our democracies.  It seems that the freedom from tyranny, from oppression and from slavery has always been won at the expense of the lives of too many.

That is the true cost of freedom and those lives are sometimes offered voluntarily to achieve or to defend freedom and sometimes they are taken. Sometimes they are the innocent caught in the crossfire between those who would oppress others and those who would be free. Sometimes lives are taken in retaliation, sometimes by accident sometimes for revenge. Too often, children are slaughtered, their lives taken as if they had no meaning.

The cost of freedom is high and it is buried in the ground in graves around the world.

What have we done with the freedom that was purchased for us with many of those lives? What example do we set for those who fight and die today in a desperate attempt to achieve the same freedom we so casually take for granted? How do we honour the legacy of those who gave us our freedom?

We have made a mockery of their sacrifice and are no example for those who would break free from tyranny. We are a silly people led by cynical and weak leaders. We are poorly informed on the issues, preferring to follow opinions, emotions and whatever is trending rather than to analyze and to think for ourselves. We reject consensus and refuse to find common ground with those with whom we disagree.

We are less concerned with what we stand for than what we oppose and increasingly what and who we oppose are the ideas and beliefs of our own neighbours, fellow citizens of our own countries.

Freedom should have united us but we have so little respect for the freedom others died to give us that we have become too impressed with our own self-importance and have little time or respect for the value of other people, their rights and their opinions.. We are more divided and polarized now than at any time in our histories.

We routinely use the powerful opportunity of social media to shout down any who do not agree with us. Our values have been eroded to the point of being meaningless and we have traded true spirituality for bumper sticker theologies and new-age, pop psychology nonsense.

Too many of us place a higher value on a stray dog or cat than a homeless person dying in the street.

We are no longer nations of free people working together to build successful and prosperous societies; we are individuals who put self ahead of all else. Our own opinions and personal feelings are more important to us than the good of our community, our nations or the welfare of others.

We bleat like mindless sheep squabbling over trivia. We argue about whether it is a ‘penalty’ or a ‘tax’ as if it really matters in the end. We waste thousands of pages of newsprint criticizing the Canadian prime minister for not shuffling his cabinet as if somehow the world is threatened by maintaining the status quo. Every issue is treated as a crisis until the next issue comes along and then the old issue becomes irrelevant.

We have become shallow and foolish people more concerned with the latest iGadget than the abuse of children. We spend billions globally to fund the never-ending bickering between political parties in our democracies. There is never enough money in our free societies to eradicate poverty but always enough money to help someone get elected. Once elected, we spend all of our time demonizing them.

We have traded away our individual self-reliance and taking responsibility for our own lives with ever-increasing demands for more government entitlements. We are like dogs in a manger, more concerned with what others may have than with what we individually can achieve. We no longer count our blessings. We envy and resent what has been earned or given to others.

None of it is a fitting legacy for the millions who have died so that we could live in freedom. There are too many among us who even come to mock that sacrifice.

We no longer understand that freedom is more than a privilege; it is a responsibility and we, unlike so many who died to provide it for us, have failed to honour that responsibility. We have broken faith with those who sacrificed their lives for us and we lack the values to care or feel any sense of shame because of it. We share little in common with them. We lack their courage, their sense of duty and loyalty to a cause greater than themselves.

In the end, the earth swallows us all and all that is left behind is what we contributed to this life while we were alive. The cost of freedom is high and measured in blood and in graves around the world. The tragedy is that the price paid by so many is being wasted on too many of us.

We have become societies that take for granted and that have forgotten that those who bought our freedom with their lives are more than just names on crosses and headstones in cemeteries around the world.

They are more than just names on a wall.

This post is dedicated to the men and women of countries around the world who sacrificed their lives in the defense of freedom in places like Pashendale, Normady, Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Rwanda, Afghanistan, South Africa, Libya, The Balkans and a hundred lesser known places including our own streets and college campuses. 

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