Ours is a sentimental age, when reserve and self-control are seen as callousness, and when sincerity is measured by public emotion and not actual deeds.
The pop psychologists and grief counsellors who swoop down like vultures on every tragic event and fatal misfortune treat people as though they are too fragile to deal with life's most unpleasant realities.
It is also an age when symbolism is much abused and misunderstood.
Flying the flag at half-staff every time a soldier is killed is a terrible signal to send to our enemies and people at home. It is a sign of mourning when what is needed is strength and defiance.
Had the same misguided policy been in effect during the World Wars and Korea, our flags would never have flown full-staff for the duration of the conflict.
Our enemies then would have seized upon it in their propaganda as proof of our unwillingness to fight.
Our pacifists would have delighted in such a public admission of futility.
There will be a time for national mourning for the fallen, but it is not now, not when the mission remains to be accomplished.
Keep the flags flying high!
LINK: Babbling Brooks makes the same point even more effectively than I could.
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4 comments:
Perfectly stated!
Agree...I also agree with preventing media from the base to view the repatriation of the fallen soldiers with their love ones. It is ghoulish and morbid of the media to want to be there so they can stick their cameras in the face of the loved ones who are experiencing the worst time of their lives. It's all about photo ops and asking people if they still support the mission.If the media wants to cover the funerals of the soldiers request permission from the families. There is nothing to see at the base. Caskets on conveyor belts and then being carried to waiting hearses. It's not about the public, it's about those poor families. The media has lost all self control. The government has made a decision but that isn't good enough it is used to beat the new government over the head because the MSM doesn't like their communications strategy. So sad to use our fallen soldiers as partisan/political tools.
The libs, dippers and MSN are only using the flag and coffins to prove that they are "Ultra Canadians", while the rest of us are just ordinary Canadians.
Give me a break.
First of all, what's left of the Taliban couldn't hardly give two craps about a single flag, on a single building, in a single country of the enemy. If that were the case, then for consistency, I'm sure you are going to post soon about the CF bases and the Defence Dept. continuing to lower their flags for every soldier death? Or what about the Conservative controlled Alberta Legislature?
I actually agree that the flag should not be lowered, but Canadians wanted the flag to be lowered to honour the dead before now. In fact, Conservatives wanted the flag to be lowered before they didn't want the flag lowered: Cerberus on flag lowering.
What's more, lots of families, soldiers and, yes, honest Conservatives also support the lowering of the flag.
Look, I know some of you (not all) are really anxious to be able to paint non-conservatives with the same broad brushstrokes as Republicans paint opponents of the Iraq War, but the reality is that Canadians of every stripe support the war, support the troops. So don't give me any of this crap about Libs/Dippers/MSM. That's just designed to divide us all.
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