What is this “freedom” that we talk about? Is it really worth anything?t ttThe struggle for freedom began long ago, perhaps with Epaminondas fighting the Spartans in about 380 B.C. to free Spartan slaves.

It continued in 71 B.C. when Spartacus raised an army of Roman slaves to fight the Roman army.

Americans joined the fight in 1776 when the Minute Men in Concord, Mass., fired on British Redcoats to protest against King George and his domination of Americans.

Thomas Jefferson continued the fight in 1803 by purchasing the Louisiana Territory, ending several European nation’s goals of colonizing part of our continent.

He continued the fight when he raided Tripoli to put a stop to the Barbary pirates raids on American shipping on the open seas.

In 1812, we continued the struggle for freedom by fighting the British again, this time to stop them from taking American seamen captive for forced service on British ships.

Theodore Roosevelt continued the freedom fight in 1903 when he sent the United States Navy into the Caribbean to prevent Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm from occupying the capital of Venezuela, defending the Monroe Doctrine and defending the western hemisphere from domination by European dictatorship.

In 1918, the United States Army joined the war in Europe to rid the continent of the dictatorship of the Kaiser.

In 1941, in response to a cowardly and unannounced attack on Pearl Harbor by forces of the Japanese Navy, the United States Armed Forces again joined in the war against oppression in Europe and also in the Pacific, to rid the world of those who would enslave other people.

In 1950, we were at war again, this time to preserve the freedom of South Koreans.

In 1991, the Iraqi army invaded their neighbor, Kuwait. Our army went to the defense of Kuwait. It is thought by some that we stopped too soon, leaving Saddam Hussein in power to continue his oppression of segments of his people of Iraq.

In 2001, our nation was again attacked by people wanting to subjugate us, using the tactics of terrorism to stage a surprise attack. In response, we sent our troops into Afghanistan to eliminate the terrorists and their strongholds, moving that long-troubled nation a few steps closer to freedom for its people.

In 2003, we once again fought a war to rid a people, the Iraqis, of a dictatorial government and to bring them into the circle of free nations. In

February 2004, the Iraqis got their own provisional constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech and guaranteeing women 25 percent representation in the ruling body of the country.

Freedom is not free. Those who would live free must be willing to fight, again and again, because the world will never be free of those who wish to subjugate others for their own selfish purposes. While it is nice to sit back and relax, thinking that finally we can be free of war, to do so only invites madmen and tyrants to come after us once again.

Ronald Reagan said, in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 1980, “It is not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak, that we have war. It is then that tyrants are tempted.”

It is only in the last 200 years that these “forces of freedom” really existed. It is only then that the concept of “freedom” came to mean freedom from oppression, freedom from needlessly large and overbearing governments. Our Constitution was the first document ever to guarantee certain freedoms to the people, stating clearly that these freedoms are “inalienable rights,” rather than gifts from the government. The message was loud and clear for the first time ever that these rights were not a government’s to give, but rights of the people to be rigorously protected by their government against all attempts to eliminate those rights.

While oceans once gave us a comfortable buffer against most of the world’s tyrants, that is no longer so. The attack on Pearl Harbor proved that. And if anyone failed to get the message, or forgot it, the attack on New York City in September 2001, was a harsh reminder that we are now even more vulnerable to attack by tyrants.

We must be ever watchful, constantly maintaining our strength to deter such attacks. And we must not be reluctant to hit back when the need arises. We must not be reluctant to fight for the cause of freedom , where ever it is threatened. Though it seems a contradiction, it is our strength that may prevent us from having to go to war with yet another tyrant who thinks that our weakness renders us harmless to his goal of domination. And it is our courage to hit back hard and fast that reminds the would-be tyrant that there is a high price to be paid for aggression

We should never give up on our desire for peace, but we should never trade our freedom for a dictator’s promise of “peace” if we let him have his way. If ever we fall asleep on our post, we may wake to find ourselves in the position of Spartacus at the end of his long, but losing struggle for freedom.

James Williamson, of Lincolnville, is a retired research chemist.