Posted on 05/29/2006 8:10:00 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
On the last Monday in May, when we celebrate our war dead, we are to remember that yesterday’s pain ensures today’s liberties.
The inference is that war has been the ultimate (and necessary) price of freedom.
But how free are the dead? And could we have honestly avoided the wars in our history?
Suppose the Colonies had not revolted against England in the War of Independence. Would we have become the major British colony, gaining enough influence to modify the authoritarianism of the British crown and to gain the rights which we now cherish?
Like Canada we might eventually and peacefully split off as an independent nation.
Or suppose the North had not retaliated for the South’s firing on Ft. Sumter. Would our nation have split in two? Or would the anti-slavery movement, already strong, have eventually converted the South so that we became one free nation?
Suppose America had stayed out of the war against Adolf Hitler. Presumably we entered World War II in fear that Hitler, after conquering Europe, would then come after us. It’s hard to contest that point except to say that if Germany had been treated more humanely after World War I, Hitler might never have risen.
The point is not that war was inevitable or glorious, but that it was a cruel and inefficient remedy invoked only after peaceable remedies had failed or been neglected.
Our great need is to discover problems and workable alternatives in time to make them succeed.
Hitlers cannot rise in nations of contented countrymen.
Should we rename Memorial Day "The Day for Peace"?
(Excerpt) Read more at newsblogs.chicagotribune.com ...
That may be true,but it's all that stands between those who wish not to be oppressed and those who wish to oppress.
"....when we celebrate our war dead,...."
the asswipe lost ME in the first sentence!
a cruel and inefficient remedy invoked only after peaceable remedies had failed
Well, there you have it.
Ahhh, "The Great 'What If?' Game". It always ends up with a rosy outcome, doesn't it? Imagine that.
He makes Alan Alda look macho.
What a total moron!
War may be cruel and inefficient, but it's far less so than appeasement.
I wonder if this sackful of mush shaves yet. He doesn't even quite have a command of English, yet.
"Revolted"? WTH?
An apprentice clueless reporter? He seems definitely to qualify!
Suppose Eastman wasn't 10 minutes from his deadline and out of ideas for a column...?
I guess it's better then 'revoluted'.
Girly-man alert.
How easy is it to write an article filled with the word "suppose". Liberals dealing in their fantasy world while the rest of us deal in reality.
More importantly, if the US had not entered WWI, the Entente and the Central Powers would have come to some compromise to end the fighting. It is all but impossible to imagine Adolf Hitler rising to power, if WWI ended by a negotiated peace instead of the "Armistice."
How would you have termed it? It isn't called "The Revolution" for nothing.
Suppose American journalists had to report in German, and only after the Party edited their words?
Celebrate?
In a word, no.
That might be an educational exercise for children up to say, the fourth grade, but a truly profoundly ignorant question for informed, educated adults.
The large elephant in the corner that Eastman, and all peaceniks like him, ignores is that evil exists. There will always be evil people, (like Hitler, Genghis Khan, etc.) who will wage war on their fellow man for nefarious reasons. Again peaceniks like Eastman believe that pure evil can be reasoned with. It can't. As if millions of Americans standing on the east coast playing guitars and singing Kum Buyah would have stopped Hitler's troops as they crossed the ocean. He lives in a dreamworld.
Interesting theory. What makes you think that the meat grinder of WW I wouldn't have continued until there was a victor? Were there negotiations prior to the US entry in to the war?
APf
Hooboy! what planet is this guy on?
"suppose the world was full of gumdrop trees and rainbows and lollypop lanes"
yeesh
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