“I said this before – I despise those people. What we want is the court to say – this man did this. We don’t care if they are given two years in jail or just a suspended sentence. I say that as long as we breathe, it is our duty towards those who died in the camps or were executed to speak out and say, ‘it has happened once and there is no guarantee it can’t happen again’. People should realize that the freedom that we enjoy so naturally was gained at huge sacrifice and hardship, and that we have to cultivate our freedom and not forget. Not forget – that’s the important thing.” Much the same thing can be said about our own Revolution and it's prelude.
I believe it was Burke who pointed out that the major difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution was the lack of thirst for vengeance. American Tories may have suffered ostracization and vilification, they were not jailed, their property was not confiscated. Of course the Communist regime in eastern Europe was far harsher than any thing King George III ever did over here. (Actually, given the choice between King George III and Emperor Barack, the founding fathers probably would have preferred the less intrusive foreign king.)
His words strike me as a call for vengenance, and as the Mahatma said, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. I do like the fact that the Estonians are removing Soviet era monuments to the Red Army, who were more oppressive than the Nazis, but, at the same time, not seeking to avenge every wrong from the Communist era.
Most Americans have no appreciation for the brutality and cruelty of Soviet Russian occupation of eastern Europe.