remember, remember

How many of you remember studying about Guy Fawkes Day in school?

You don't? I'm not surprised. After all, it happened in 1605. It was all about blowing up a building to set right the perceived wrongs imposed on the populace by a tyrannical government. The lyric poem starts, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November." Thirty years later my ancestors (on Dad's side) came to this country. I doubt that one had anything to do with the other. Sir Robert and his family were no doubt motivated more by royal land grant greed than any ideal of freedom. A hundred and forty years later this country fought a war for independence from that same government. Three hundred twenty years after the event that country stood alone, while the rest of the world looked on, as its soldiers flew and bombed and marched and fought and died for freedom from another kind of tyrant, and the most abhorrent evil kind of tyranny.

Today we find the methods of Fawkes and his not-so-merry band just as reprehensible as the torture used to obtain the "confession." Today the Fifth of November is lauded as Counter-terrorism Day. Today soldiers from that country join ours on battlefields far from home, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for freedom from tyranny in other little countries, for people with lifestyles so very different from ours but dreams and ideals so very similar.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Whether you attribute that quote to Edmund Burke, Friedrich Nietzsche, George Washington, Harry Truman, or Ronald Reagan, the import is still the same.

"Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." Sir Winston Churchill.

"I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to." Hillary Clinton.

"If you're not willing to fight and die for freedom, it will inevitably and quickly no longer be yours to enjoy." Pat Thibodeau.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November. And the 11th of September. And the 19th of April, the 26th of February, and the month of October, 2009.