You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Defining a Nation -- The Battle of Vimy Ridge
So much death and destruction, suffered by people who had no real part in the conflict beyond where they were born, but believing that patriotism required them to murder and die...
I just finished watching the ceremonies at the Canadian Vimy Memorial in France. As I watched the Canadian Forces and RCMP march across the grass covered ridge in sharp contrast to the killing fields of a century ago, I gave thanks for the peace and freedoms those losses gained for us.
My grandfather served in WW2, my father and uncles in WW2, my husband in Korea. They, like hundreds of thousands of their generation made the decision to stand up for freedom from tyranny. You may not consider that to be a real part, they saw it as protecting the future for themselves, their neighbours and future generations. Their service gave us, a century later, the peace and freedoms we do enjoy.
So excuse me at being disgusted by the profound ignorance and disrespect you demonstrate for those you don't know who fought for what you have as a right.
I think you misunderstand my point. It is universal, not anti-Canadian, anti-US, or anything else. Patriotic soldiers and police obeying orders and believing they are doing the right thing for noble reasons are the only thing that allows tyrants to have power, and allowing belligerent rulers to wage war on their neighbors while oppressing dissenters at home. It is a tragedy I mourn, not a mockery.
Consider the wasted potential of the Christmas Truce, where soldiers exhibited a brief glimpse of their shared humanity instead of the nationalistic insanity that perpetuated that bloodbath. I mourn this loss of human potential and the consequences it created over the past century.
Your language is profoundly disrespectful, I don't care how universal it is.
While you profess to not be mocking, you are doing exactly that without regard for the fact that you do so within a safe society that was forged by the very people who made those choices so long ago to help provide that safety .
Your comments demonstrate a profound ignorance of any more than a superficial understanding of what took place in those world conflicts. Yet, you feel you can sit in judgement pronouncing on the past.
A student of history must be willing to pronounce judgment on the actions of individuals in the past. It is how we analyze their choices and determine how well their actions served their intended ends. It is easy to judge Hitler or Stalin, along with their Nazi and Communist adherents. It is painful but necessary to judge those we deem heroes, such as Churchill and Roosevelt.
WW1 is far less understood than WW2, requiring much more consideration. I assure you my conclusions are not hasty or superficial. I know my beliefs are in opposition to the patriotic narrative. But they are the result of careful contemplation, not a knee-jerk reaction.
If we are to avoid repeating the errors of the past, we MUST confront the mythology that surrounds them. Many men with honorable intent did evil deeds. Both sides of that equation must be confronted.
one thing to see clearly and another to be profoundly ignorant and disrespectful in expressing those views.
Either that or it is just best to write a memo to myself: "Can't fix stupid, stop trying"