Tea and Vitriol

  Today is Memorial Day. It is the unofficial start of summer, the culmination of a three-day weekend that usually features picnics where people overindulge in barbecued food and beer, parades and fireworks. But that is NOT what Memorial Day is all about. Memorial Day was set aside to honor the brave men and women who served our country in the armed forces to preserve our freedom and died in the process. Freedom is not free. Our service men and women in many cases paid the cost of freedom with their blood, sometimes making the supreme sacrifice: their lives for our country. We take those freedoms for granted on a daily basis. Some people, when they have run-ins with the law, claim that they now know what it is to live within a "police state," when it is patently clear that they know no such thing. A "police state" would never allow them to speak publicly in that manner. Among some people, it has been fashionable for a very long time to mock patriotism and the armed

  Tomorrow is Memorial Day. It is the unofficial start of summer, the culmination of a three day weekend that usually features picnics where people overindulge in barbecued food and beer, parades and fireworks. But that is NOT what Memorial Day is all about. Memorial Day was set aside to honor the brave men and women who served our country in the armed forces to preserve our freedom...and never made it home. Freedom is not free. Our service men and women in many cases paid the cost of freedom with their blood, sometimes making the supreme sacrifice: their lives for our country. We take those freedoms for granted on a daily basis. Some people, when they have run-ins with the law, claim that they now know what it is to live within a "police state," when it is patently clear that they know no such thing. A "police state" would never allow them to speak publicly in that manner. Among some people, it has been fashionable for a very long time to mock patriotism and the ar