Memorial Day

[rcooley25]

On this memorial day please realise the following statement. America is not the home of the free and the brave. America is the home of the free because of the brave

[BobKamman]

It was not a very free country when it wanted to draft me for a war that, like many that followed, was lost. Draftees accounted for 30.4% of combat deaths in Vietnam. Canada became the home of some brave people I knew at the time. Let’s just keep nationalism out of these discussions.

[IRonMaN]

I have my flag flying today, just like I do on other national holidays like the 4th of July and Veterans Day.  I don't think there is a better country to live in, but that doesn't mean we don't have a lot of room for improvement.  I watched a show on PBS last night about the Japanese internment camps during WWII.  Those people certainly didn't feel free.  I was looking to see if PBS was going to follow up that program with a show about the German internment camps during WWII but for some odd reason there wasn't anything about that.  And we certainly can't feel totally free when 9 and 10 year olds have to worry about whether they will be alive to catch the school bus at the end of the school day.  I respect anybody that put on a uniform to help defend this country, but I also respect anybody that wants to take a knee during a football game during the national anthem.  Land of the free also makes it possible to have different opinions without the need to have a barroom brawl when someone has an opinion different from your own.

[rcooley25]

If it is so bad here why the hell dont you move to Canada. If you dont like a nationalism post that might be posted by me or someone else then dont bother replying to it.

[joshuabarksatlcs]

@BobKamman , I'm all for "let's just keep nationalism out of these discussions", even though you started with a whole paragraph discussing what you thought was important.

I just wanted to add this.  Let's not butcher it.  Francis Scott Key penned the famous words “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” 

Feel free to disagree with his words.  

[rcooley25]

I agree with what you say about them having the right to do waht they do whether it is taking a knee during the National Anthem or something else. But that  does not mean I have to like the ungrateful bastards.

[rcooley25]

As Steve Matin would say well excuse me

[BobKamman]

@IRonMaN   I have a client who was born in one of those internment camps. I know what you mean, but a topic for a subsequent documentary could be the internment camps and “exclusion zones” our country established for German-Americans and Italian-Americans during World War II. They were not treated as harshly, mostly because there were so many of them that it would have been impractical. And besides, they were white.

Others may choose to quote a line from a song written by a pro-slavery prosecutor whose war record included a rapid retreat from the enemy. Just let me quote from the anthem that many Americans prefer:

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us