In light of the recent 4th of July mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, I’ve been rethinking Stephen Stills classic song, ‘Find the Cost of Freedom’.

“Find the cost of freedom
buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you
lay your body down

Find the cost of freedom
buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you
lay your body down”

Written at the height of the Vietnam War, it was released as the B side to ‘Ohio’ which was a direct condemnation of Kent State. ‘Find the Cost of Freedom’ was less explicit. There have been multiple suggestions as to the meaning of the song, including the student deaths at Kent State, the death of our soldiers in Vietnam, or even the cost of war to us as a people. Although simply written, with fewer words, it’s a more complicated song.

The song was rereleased in 1982 as ‘Daylight Again/Find the Cost Of Freedom’, with seeming references to the Civil War. The line “When everyone’s talkin’ and no one is listenin’, how can we decide?” is added right before the famous refrain and it then becomes:

“When everyone's talkin’ and no one is listenin’, How can we decide
(Do we) find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down”

To me, this version seems a perfect summation of the entire gun violence issue. No one listens to anyone on the other side. The result? We see the cost of freedom, and the results of the Second Amendment, dead and buried in the ground. People are going to die, and that is just the price we need to pay for the freedom to own guns. Any kind of guns. All guns. Just lay your body down and accept it.

We here in ‘Murica have deemed that acceptable to protect our Second Amendment freedom. Everyone has the freedom to own their guns, even if it’s at the expense of other people, who just want to celebrate their freedom by watching a parade on the Fourth of July.

God Bless America.

Find the cost of freedom
buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you 
lay your body down

Find the cost of freedom 
buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you 
lay your body down

…

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Addendum:

You can read my previous blogs on gun violence here:

• I was invited by the Brady Organization to speak at the End Gun Violence Rally on the National Mall. This was in conjunction with the 2022 DC March for our Lives. Here are my words […] Continue at: https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2022/06/11/speaking-out-on-gun-violence/
• There was no urgency to write this blog. I knew another mass shooting would happen sooner or later. I didn’t have to tie it to Buffalo or California. The next shooting would come along soon enough. I wasn’t disappointed. Texas happened this past […] Continue at: https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2022/05/29/guns-and-murica/