Freedom costs

During my copywriting days ages ago, I remember writing a newspaper advertisement for the Louisville branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. I thought my headline was clever and even unique: “Freedom isn’t free.” My copy went on to say, “It cost to win it. It costs to keep it.” The other day I saw that same headline on someone’s shirt at the fitness center. So much for my supposed cleverness and uniqueness. I was reminded of that ancient ad of mine today as I read the column below from the New York Times. Freedom in America and in many other countries is under attack. Autocrats seek absolute power and control of people. They think they know better than we do. As I prepare to celebrate Independence Day, I remember my direct forebear John Chumbley. He was a farm boy from Virginia who joined the Continental Army and fought the authoritarianism of George III and the British Government during the American Revolution. This long-ago grandfather of mine lived to see the formation of this great Republic, this experiment in ”government of, by and for the people,” as Lincoln said. May we, the people, remember on July 4 and every day the patriots who fought, bled and died for democracy; they paid that price, because they preferred liberty to slavery, self-government to one-man rule. Freedom is never free. Perhaps that headline was neither clever nor unique when I wrote it in 1985, but it was true. It was true in 1776, and it is certainly true in 2019.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/opinion/a-revolution-in-happiness.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share