Celebration of Peace?

Written by Stanton Smith.

Just wanted to get some thoughts off my chest.

I was talking to my kids today about Armistice Day, and the celebration of peace. The focus was on not being at war. And then the feds decided that war should be the new norm, so now it’s Veteran’s Day. I told them that instead of celebrating an idea (peace), a lot of people celebrate a job on this day, and that job is to go kill strangers for the government. It is viewed as an honorable sacrifice that these people make on our behalf to “protect” us.

We talked about how if you go to someone’s house to kill them, you are likely the bad guy. You should be peaceful, and defend yourself from someone trying to invade your home if needed.

We talked about how the constitution prohibits a standing army, precisely because war wasn’t meant to be idolized, and mercenary work was to be frowned upon. If the country is invaded, an army can be assembled (local militias — 2nd amendment anyone?), but after the invaders were repelled, everyone would go back to their regular lives and commerce, and nobody would make their living off of violence.

The thing that made me sad though, is that sharing something like this on my public wall would likely lead to backlash, with people telling me that I should be grateful for the brave men and women in uniform who protect my freedoms. And we all know the logical rebuttals to such statements, but those rebuttals have little effect because these people aren’t speaking from a logical point of view; it’s emotional. You can’t fight deep-seated emotion with logic. Their statism truly is a religion, and challenging it with fact only serves to entrench them deeper in their devotion to the military.

Originally published on Facebook.com.