The costs of independence

Just since last October, more than 1,200 people have been killed and many hundreds more wounded outside Iraq and Syria in more than a dozen countries around the planet in attacks orchestrated or inspired by the Islamic State. The atrocities in Orlando, Bangladesh, and Baghdad are only the most recent in an ongoing determined slaughter in the effort of one religious group to dominate the world.  ISIS is just one of the groups wreaking havoc.  There are also Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and a dozen other splinter organizations dedicated to the subjugation of others--especially women—the suppression of science, and the stifling of freedom everywhere.

Enjoy this Independence Day celebration, but maybe give a thought to all those who have won and preserved it for us over the decades, often at the cost of their lives, and for those in many countries who are continuing that battle today.

Phil