What would a free man do?
It’s Veteran’s Day today. I have many friends who are Vets. Butch, Dan, Richard, Nate, Russell, Riff, Jason just to name a few. Some are still with us, some are not. I am grateful for every day they served. Every day they sacrificed for our freedom.
There is a line from a movie that haunts me lately. I was watching 300 again and the scene is Leonidas awake, contemplating what to do next. He has been told he can’t go fight but he knows that is the wrong thing for Sparta.
His queen asked him ‘What would a free man do?’
A variation of the line rings in my head. When we think about what we should do about the situation our country is in we are tempted to put people in categories. Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Libertarian, Voter, Citizen, Illegal Alien, White, Black, Hispanic and the list goes on.
But I think the question is simple. What would a free man do? The answer to that question cost Leonidas his life and the lives of his 300 but it is the same answer our soldiers give every day they serve.
What would a free man do? They fight to set others free. They fight to quiet injustice. The fight to protect our country. They fight to save lives of their companions. They fight to protect me. And you. They love their family and their country. They don’t need our permission to fight for us. They just do it because it is the right thing to do.
As a free man I am asking myself that same question. What does a free man do? I don’t wear a uniform and I don’t fight for our freedom as overtly as a soldier does but the reality is I just fought for us.
I voted. Did you vote? It is one of the reasons the soldier fights. To protect our right to vote. Not voting betrays that sacrifice. in 2012, 62 million people voted for Obama. 58 million voted for Romney. 90 million people did not vote.
I know all the excuses we give. ‘They are all liars or my vote won’t count or who cares?’.
A free man finds truth. It is elusive but it is available if you can get past the spin. I get lots of emails from well meaning people who think they are helping but the facts are distorted in those emails and it spins both left and right. Factoids taken out of context to support an argument and it only succeeds in diminishing our standing as thinking, intelligent free people. Labels do that to us as much as the factoids taken out of context.
I am going to encourage you to consider the question ‘What would a free man do?’ or ‘What would a free woman do?’ and strive to answer it today. The day we recognize the sacrifice made by our soldiers to keep us free men and women.
What are you going to do?
Thanks for listening,
Jerry Robertson
678-231-1578 Cell