Wednesday, December 07, 2016

Remembering Pearl Harbor

I'm reminded today of what a scary situation the world was in on December 7th, 1941. Germany had already pushed all the way to the Atlantic Ocean through France. It had taken Austria and Poland. It had allies in Spain and Italy. Hitler had only (stupidly) broken with Russia a few months before.

Meanwhile, Japan threatened to take all of Asia, as it actually would do for a time. So we were looking at a world united against us on both sides, a situation that would no doubt eventually have led to all out world war against us. War is always a course of last resort, but this was surely a time to defend ourselves if there ever was one.

Many Germans at the time were captives within their own country. Many of them had not supported Hitler at all in his rise to power. They were taken captive by a subgroup they initially had not taken seriously and that had slowly taken over everything by stealth and violence.

Pearl Harbor is a reminder to us of the great freedoms we have that have been paid for more than once at a high price. We have the freedom to worship who we want. We have the freedom to publish and say what we want. We have the freedom to defend ourselves against aggressors. We even have the freedom to burn flags, although it seems a stupid thing to do.

Let us never let fear of some loser blowing him or herself up convince us to give up these freedoms. We're stronger than that. Let us not ever let some charismatic leader who shares our values talk us into taking away the rights of others who disagree with us. Let us never let fear or crisis lead us to give away our freedoms.

We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

As always, you have a good word to remind us who we are. Thank you.