A Thank You, on the Occasion of Veteran's -- Armistice Day

[HoreTore]

The wonders of pure idealism.

Pah.

You're already narrowing it down by limiting the memorial to just soldiers, and not the general populations. If you're going to narrow down the scope, you might as well narrow it down to such a scale that you don't end up celebrating a million dirtbags in the process.

I'll happily honour those soldiers who deserve to be honoured. There have been several good men. There have also been hordes of absolute scum. I'm not honouring those.


And besides - Norway was indeed "pure idealism" during ww1...

[Viking]

Pah.

You're already narrowing it down by limiting the memorial to just soldiers, and not the general populations. If you're going to narrow down the scope, you might as well narrow it down to such a scale that you don't end up celebrating a million dirtbags in the process.

I'll happily honour those soldiers who deserve to be honoured. There have been several good men. There have also been hordes of absolute scum. I'm not honouring those.


And besides - Norway was indeed "pure idealism" during ww1...

It seemed to me that you were coming from the "if everybody refused to go to war, there would be no war"-angle.

I'm not taking part in any honouring. If I do something, it's typically either because I have to do it, or because I believe it's the right thing to do - and in either case, expecting thanks becomes meaningless, and therefore I am not overly inclined to give them, either.

[HoreTore]

It seemed to me that you were coming from the "if everybody refused to go to war, there would be no war"-angle.

I am a fan of that Tolstoj line, yes.

[Viking]

I am a fan of that Tolstoj line, yes.

That's the idealism. If one side is willing to fight, a logically correct line will not save anyone.

It's typically heads of states and governments that start wars, so that might be a better point of focus - not the least because there are considerably fewer heads of states around than there are soldiers.

[HoreTore]

That's the idealism. If one side is willing to fight, a logically correct line will not save anyone.

It's typically heads of states and governments that start wars, so that might be a better point of focus - not the least because there are considerably fewer heads of states around than there are soldiers.

That, however, was not Tolstoj's argument in War and Peace. Sorry for being a quote-tease, but I've searched the intertubez for the relevant section and found nothing. And I'm not going to break open that tome again.... A good read though, if you've got a decade to spare.

Anyway, I don't see where I have diverted any blame from hawkish heads of state. Would you care to point out where I have done so? Still, they could not have done so if not for the willingness of their soldiers(as Tolstoj noted).

At the end of the day, I consider a soldier to be a profession like any other. Like, say, working in advertising. And just like advertising, I see no point to their work, and I do not want it. I see them as a drain of resources better spent elsewhere, who contribute nothing of what I want.

Further, days like these do not celebrate sacrifice and losses in war. It celebrates very specific sacrifices in war. And it just so happens that the sacrifices celebrated is not one I find any point in celebrating, I see it as a simple celebration of militarism. It contributes to the aura of grandeur surrounding those in the military. The hero-worship makes it much harder to hand out proper punishment for war crimes(he's a hero, shut your mouth!).

Where is the day celebrating all those who lost their lives sabotaging the war effort in their own countries during ww1? Those are the people I would like to celebrate.

[HoreTore]

Remember Erik Gjems-Onstad, Viking. A truly despicable creature, but his war-time service has made it a lot harder for people to see what scum he was.

He awarded Benjamin Hermansens murderer, Ole Nicolai Kvisler, a large sum of money for his "contribution to maintaining racial purity in Norway".

When the bugger finally died, I saw plenty of people express their sorrow in social media, for the loss of a "great hero". A man who funds nazi murderers is a hero in this country, because he fought in a war.

I spit on his grave.

[Viking]

At the end of the day, I consider a soldier to be a profession like any other. Like, say, working in advertising. And just like advertising, I see no point to their work, and I do not want it. I see them as a drain of resources better spent elsewhere, who contribute nothing of what I want.

Theoretically, all jobs are redundant. If everybody could just behave properly and do the right things, we could get rid of the police - and the state, too.

Further, days like these do not celebrate sacrifice and losses in war. It celebrates very specific sacrifices in war. And it just so happens that the sacrifices celebrated is not one I find any point in celebrating, I see it as a simple celebration of militarism. It contributes to the aura of grandeur surrounding those in the military. The hero-worship makes it much harder to hand out proper punishment for war crimes(he's a hero, shut your mouth!).

I guess. I take issue with most kind of themed days, as they do not encourage critical thinking. "Let's have a Human Rights Day, where we feel sorry for tortured souls and good about our enlightened selves, falling asleep perhaps a shallow insight or two smarter than the day before - insights carefully selected by others".

Remember Erik Gjems-Onstad, Viking. A truly despicable creature, but his war-time service has made it a lot harder for people to see what scum he was.

He awarded Benjamin Hermansens murderer, Ole Nicolai Kvisler, a large sum of money for his "contribution to maintaining racial purity in Norway".

When the bugger finally died, I saw plenty of people express their sorrow in social media, for the loss of a "great hero". A man who funds nazi murderers is a hero in this country, because he fought in a war.

I spit on his grave.

Nothing unique. Think of aid programmes for poorer countries. Undoubtedly, they'll benefit thousands of murderers, rapists and other despicable people, while organisations and TV ads prefer to turn the entire population into suffering angels, for a moment.

[rvg]

...I spit on his grave...

A grave is indeed a worthy adversary.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Pah.

You're already narrowing it down by limiting the memorial to just soldiers, and not the general populations. If you're going to narrow down the scope, you might as well narrow it down to such a scale that you don't end up celebrating a million dirtbags in the process.

You can't dig yourself out that easily. There have been all sorts of memorials, documentaries, celebrations etc over here relating to the nurses that served on the battlefields, the women who worked the factories, etc.

Why can't you just honour the bravery and sacrifice of millions of ordinary people?

[Fragony]

You can't dig yourself out that easily. There have been all sorts of memorials, documentaries, celebrations etc over here relating to the nurses that served on the battlefields, the women who worked the factories, etc.

Why can't you just honour the bravery and sacrifice of millions of ordinary people?

If you see the first for what it was, an escalation of total stupidity, it ain't that a weird position to take. Who is to blame is another matter, nobody really knows what started it really. But those who enlisted volunteered to kill, and it was kinda cool to kill, the jolly good war, you can at least call people who enlisted incredibly naive. Naivity is the best quality you can have but you are still an idiot. Horetore ain't far off if you ask me. Bit brutal, but not wrong.

[Brenus]

"There have been several good men. There have also been hordes of absolute scum." I will reverse the proportion.
The men from my village had probably the same proportion of scums, villains than other villages in deep France. By the way, villain was the names of farmers/peasants during the Middle-Ages.
I don't think they deserve your scorn/epitaph.
They were just humans beings, working in not that comfortable conditions, earning from a land made of clay and stones (due to geological factor as old glaciers just ending here and there) at the end of the 19 century start of the 20th.

They were workers, peasants and soldiers, mostly peasants.

They were not hordes, and certainly not absolute scum. Poaching would have probably the main sin of their lives.
You are pushing too far in your statement, made by arrogance. I am French, I am supposed to be a master in arrogance.
Go back to a better understanding of what is honoring the dead. It is not to say the war was good. Not to say you agree with it.

It is just a humble acknowledgement that their lives were cut short by machine-guns, artillery and then the Spanish fever.

I.... feel them, for them, when I walked in my childhood landscape because they had the same, we share this. The mist above the lakes, the river running along the hills, the trees murmuring with the wind, dragon flies flying near the surface, the sun light on the waves made by the stream and the flashing of the fishes, the wild boar crossing the snowy fields, the dear coming to drink few meters from you, you who stay still, not daring blinking. The silence of the warm night in July and the sound of the northern wind in December, the 200 years old tree that saw them, and me.
I have their DNA, some were cousins, potential ones, some could have been my grand-grand parents if the bullets had been few millimeters left or right. They are now just names on a monument, blackened by pollution, barely maintained by the town hall of a around 1000 inhabitants village.
Can't you feel their humanity?