Surprising how those who say they fought for freedom are often the first to silence others who express a different point of view.
Trying to prevent more wars is not disrespecting those who died, or 'abusing' the poppy day.
Just the opposite. Those who fought were told it was the war to end all wars. The best way to respect them and make their sacrifice worthwhile would be to do just that, to end all wars.
Not to moderate and silence people who express a view different to your own.
Britain declared war on Germany to get Hitler out of Poland. Then left Poland with Stalin who was just as bad. It might have worked out better if we had left Hitler and Stalin to annihilate each other. But we have to pretend it was all worthwhile to 'justify' the catastrophic cost of it.
Whilst I can understand that I can see another point of view. Pretending it was all worthwhile, making a hero out of Churchill, can only encourage more politicians to send us into war. As they have done.
I have added together two of your posts in order to save me answering separately
Trite statements such as 'We should end all wars.' sum up the degraded views of those who who would lie back and let anyone walk over them, and their way of life, and offer no resistance. It also implies the disgraceful view that countries go to war just for the fun of it! No one wants war, but there are some who have the moral courage to know when it's necessary.
We did not go to war just because Hitler invaded Poland. It was because we knew that, if he invaded one country, others would follow, and we were right! Perhaps you and your ilk would have been happy to have let Hitler conquer all of Europe and extend German hegemony over the half of the world, along with the continent-wide extermination of Jews, Gypsies, mentally ill, crippled and anyone else that his evil regime considered sub-human? Orientals and Slavs were lucky, they were just marked down for slave labour. We were right to go to war as we have been right since. Ask any South Korean what he thinks!
John Stuart Mill wrote this:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of morals and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight and nothing that he cares more about than his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
J.S. Mill (1806-1873
English philosopher and economist 1868.
Finally, I'd like to point out that it wasn't me who was moderated. One man made a post with which I actually agreed, but his language in it was appalling and included four letter words, and it was right that it was removed.
I also do not subscribe to the theory that continuing this debate along these lines disrespects the dead. I and others are actually challenging those who really disrespect them by refusing to wear a poppy or putting up specious arguments about the horrors of war. The better men whom we remember didn't have the luxury of debating the morality of war, as they died to ensure that today, we are not serfs in a Greater German Reich.
