An American's View of Value

While my husband and I were in Europe, our youngest son was sworn into the U.S. military. We value the military for its commitment to democracy and upholding and protecting our Constitution, under the authority of our president. But, our values were not the value in most of the European friends and family that we know and I begin to question why this was so....

While sitting with some European friends at dinner, we were sharing about our children and when we shared that our son was going into service, the wife questioned how I felt about that. I sat quietly, at first, as I weighed what I would say. And then, I compared service to the military with the husband's job at Phillips. Although one may not agree to every decision that is made by company managers, there is an overall agreement and upholding of company values and vision. This was similar to anyone that wanted to serve their country in the military.

Our country's values of "ordered liberty" is a value that we take for granted. We must not take these freedoms for granted, but be indebted to our fore-fathers for forseeing what the costs would be if there was no protection of these values.

All of the Europeans that we spoke to and we questioned about the European Paraliment could not give us a concrete vision or purpose for its establishment. Granted that there must be a way to order the vast differences of the individual European countries. The problems have resulted in unification at the sacrifice of individual identity. And this is one reason why Switzerland has not joined the European Union.

Our son's life is being committed to the values we have upheld for him, because we believe that all men are created equal, not in aptitude, but in innate being, as a human being. Human dignity is the basis of human rights, which some religious do not value. We should not apologize for these values, for they represent the highest form of moral order. We tolerate the intolerant at our detriment and our demise. How do we protect those who do not know they "need" protection, or do not value liberty, because they have not experienced it? I don't know, but I am so thankful to have had the freedom that we have in America.

Americans, and anyone who values individuality should uphold American government and defend its ideals. Our family has given their lives for these ideals to be protected and we think this is of ultimate value!