An pacifist explains why he refuses to wear a poppy.
I refrain from wearing a poppy to criticize the use of military force, at the expense of soldiers, civilians and their families, by the state – any state – in order to achieve political goals, no matter how noble.
[…]
Of course, the question must be addressed, “Faced with the Nazi menace, what were we to do?” Mahatma Gandhi, who also faced oppressive imperial forces during his lifetime, said, “Non-violence is a weapon of the strong.” When faced with oppression and injustice, sometimes it can be easier to lash out in violent reaction – one that will further propagate the conflict, perhaps sowing seeds of future conflicts – than to react in a constructive, non-violent way that will actually resolve the conflict, giving rise to things such as true freedom and democracy. What would Gandhi have done in Poland or Germany if he were faced with the advance of the Third Reich and witness to the holocaust?
Perhaps, in protest, he would have joined a line up of Jewish people waiting to board a train to Auschwitz. Would you have the courage to make that sacrifice? Would I?
Hopefully, we’ll never have to find out.
Someone, buy this man a plane ticket to North Korea.
Wanna bet he wears a keffiyah?
Maybe he would wear a white poppy. Mine is always red.
Having grown up as an army brat, Remembrance Day and poppies are are still some of the things that can get me really choked up.
I wear it as a way of saying thank you. And now these last 6 years, especially a way to honour my father.
.. and he’s a teacher with full access to children in their most formative years to liberalize at will until the cows come home. If only we had serious and patriotic educational standards in this country… hey libs: f-***
Not to burst Mr. McLeod’s bubbly existence, but Gandhi’s view on World War II is well known: he refused to support it not due to pacifism, but to force Britain to pay the price for his support – Indian independence.
Faced with the Nazi menace (and its Japanese allies right at India’s doorstep), Gandhi chose to hold the Brits up for ransom, so to speak.
To be honest, I prefer the real version of history to the pacifist gruel. If we are ever to win the Second Cold War against Communist China, a pacifist India is the LAST thing we need.
The pacifist made an incredibly ignorant comment. War is NOT always and only a tactic to achieve a political goal- a goal that could be accomplished by other means. We all know the ignorant mindset of this pacifist; he’s doing the usual anti-Americanism, by suggesting that US actions are political rather than defensive.
I’d bet he couldn’t answer your questions. How should the Poles have reacted as Hitler marched into their land? How should the world have reacted as the trains were filled to Auschwitz? Do you seriously think the Nazis would object to a pacifist or two -or more- joining that train?
What’s his answer to genocide? The situation in India was not one country vs another; it was completely internal and therefore could be met with pacifism for the British had no intention of a war on civilians. Tell us, naive pacifist, how you would deal with a situation where your country was attacked by another country?
Our current world war is quite similar to the previous global wars. It’s a fight between collectivism and individualism. This naive pacifist could not survive in a collectivist society, for it would not permit him to, himself, decide whether or not to ‘wear a poppy’. He would have to obey the state.
Were those young girls beheaded by Islamic fundamentalists engaged in war? Yet – did their non-violence make any difference to their murderers?
“What wouls Gandhi have done?”
He’d have died.
Fortunately for him, and me, and all the rest of us, a whole whack of lousy capitalist pig dogs stood up and said “Enough!”
I thought the second part of the post was kind of thoughtful. I can’t speak to Ghandi’s stance on WWII, but it seems to me that the point is that pacifism is one way, but a really hard way. This is not to say that war is a walk in the park either.
War vs Peace is an incredibly hard decision.
Having said that. Poppy vs no-poppy is not hard. Wear it.
“Pacifists are among the most immoral of men – they make no distinction between aggression and defense. Therefore, pacifism is one of the greatest allies an aggressor can have.” So said Patrick Henry. I tend to concur with that summation.
Aside from my personal discomfort with the way Canadians wear poppies–I think it amounts to wearing ideals on your sleeves and not being prepared to get down and dirty and put up a fight over their preservation–this kid is an ignoramus. Was Ghandi facing a threat that was eqivalent to Fascism or Communism? Not really. Do you think the British would have hung him? No. How would Uncle Joe, Mao, Hitler, Saddam and the whole host of Islamofascists have handled him? Killed him. When the threat is death, you fight, when there is no threat of death, non-violient resistance is one option, I agree.
It all boils down to this: today’s Leftists have a gripe with civilization and can’t get over it. They can only see the negative and cannot see the positive until someone takes it from them. In other words, they are children that have not learned but continue to cry.
Ghandi had every right to his beliefs. He also had every right to say he would not have fought back.
He didn’t have the right to make that decision for anyone else.
Reading that made me feel very violent.
This looks like our boy.
It’s got:
Advocacy and Education
I fight for labor rights (whoops, did I read fight?)
I shop local only
In short, he’s Cliche Man.
Too bad some of the cliches clash. That’s what happens when you give up your brain.
This guy will wear a yellow star or pink triangle to acknowledge the “suffering” of Jews and others at the hands of the nazis, but he won’t wear a poppy to honour the men who ended that suffering. I guess not enough people suffered.
The deliberate murder of 6 million Jews, that many Catholics, gypsies, etc., and the enslavement of millions can be described as many things. Suffering isn’t one of them.
… and here’s his glob.
Every year around this time, I always find myself frustrated when Iwalk around campus and see that most students don’t have a poppy. They are sold all around campus, and yet they just seem to sit there. I must say, I found the whole thing rather embarassing.
Whether or not you disagree with war (and I am generally a pacifist), we should not disrespect what our heroes did in WWII to fight against the spreading Nazi oppression. Fort other wars that Canada has fought (Korea as an example), there are legitimate debates over the necessity or the legitimacy of that conflict. But one thing is certain. Fighting in WWII was justifiable as the possible results that could have come about had the west not fought back are nothing sort of horrendous. Secondly, regardless of whether or not you agree with why Canada fought in various wars, we should at least remember that tens of thousands of our citizens died in conflict on battered and filthy battle fields.
On a personal note, and this possibly affects why I feel so strong about this, my grandfather was twelve when the Nazis invaded Holland. The Netherlands experienced brutal treatment by the Nazis and many were starved to death as a result. In this regard my grandfather was fortunate as he lived in a rural area and as such, had a fairly normal food supply. However, his little down also experienced the terrible oppression that Nazis brought and many of those in his town were killed. The Canadian soldiers liberated him and I am eternally greatful for what they did for him, his country, Europe, and the world. May their sacrifices for this goal never be forgotten.
from his article:
“Either way, I wouldn’t wear a swastika on my lapel on that day, just like I don’t wear a poppy on my lapel on Remembrance Day.”
He imagines he would even have that choice. Fool.
Maritime Liberal: that’s a heartwarming post and I mean that sincerely.
It would however be peachy if you could extend your feelings beyond your own personal and family experience and use your liberal empathies to understand that the dire circumstances of WWII are with us always to some degree and with us now in a big way.
We must not shirk from our duty. I can assure you that facing Hitler was not an obvious choice back then either. Many in the USA, UK and colonies were seduced by Nazi cant.
Quit typical and quite sad too on the eve of one of the saddest days of the year for me.
An expert on Fair Trade chocolate and a lawyer too. Pathetic in its own strange way.
…Clay teaches Grade 8 Social Studies, English, and Physical Education at Springvalley Middle School in Kelowna, B.C. Before working for the Central Okanagan School District, he worked as a Grade 3-6 teacher in the Chilliwack School District from 2000-2003. Before teaching, he worked as a lawyer in Vancouver and Nanaimo. He wrote OWL Magazine�s January/February, 2005 cover story about Fair Trade chocolate ….
its difficult to think clearly due to the lack of oxygen when one has one heads stuck up their arse-end.
This sicko can’t figure out the poppy is about REMEMBERING, not war. If anything, the poppy is anti-ware.
And this moonbat has access to kids – typical of the whackjobs that infest the BC Teachers Federation.
As has been pointed out, a Nazi regime would have gleefully put Ghandi to death as he protested the final solution, along with all of his supporters. Unlike India’s colonial Britain, Nazi Germany had no compunction for offing political enemies. (Hitler got in that game long before WWII began)
Nor do the Islamofascists of today. Pascifism is a poor weapon against an enemy without morals. A peace march accomplishes little when it is met with a shower of bullets or a barage of explosives.
On the other hand, once all of the protestors are dead, then peace can emerge.
this is horrible. i wish we could just hand over these idiots to the tender mercies of the tyrants and islamists, but instead we have to defend every traitorous bastard who will criticize us and impede our ability to defeat our enemies. pacifists and leftists are the most disgusting of all criminals, claiming ideals that enable them to kill millions.
Clay McLeod, my boy, you’re probably a nice enough fellow, and if you want to live down the street it’s ok by me.
I have a couple of questions for you.
1. A bunch of enemy combatants have your wife, your daughters up against a wall and they are getting ready to blow their brains out. You have a 9-millimeter.
What are you going to do, Clay, my boy?
You’ve come to the frontier of choice, Clay. It’s now or never. Either you shoot, or your family is dead. Which way are you going to go, Clay baby?
2. Hitler is about to sign the orders that will initiate Auschwitz and the other death camps. You have avoided detection because you’re hidden in a closet. Suddenly, you have 5 minutes alone with Hitler.
Which way is it going to go, Clay baby? You say you don’t want to pull the trigger? I understand. Who does? But it’s all right there in front of you. Do you pop the bastard, or do you let millions of other human beings be tortured to death? It’s all in your hands, Clay. It’s you or nobody. You don’t get to pass this one off onto someone else, Clay. It’s up to you. How are you going to jump?
3. Zarqawi and his ghoulish buddies are getting ready to behead your sister. You have an M-16 and are standing in the wings. The sword is coming down. There’s no time to philosophize. If you yell stop, the coward will behead your sister and kill you too. What’s it going to be, bucko? Paul Martin is not going to help you decide. Pettigrew is not going to help you decide. Gandhi is not going to help you decide. You either kill them and save your sister, or watch her be beheaded and console yourself with childish thoughts about pacifism.
It’s all in your hands, Clay, my boy. Where do you go from here?
This is why my children attend private school.
“It would however be peachy if you could extend your feelings beyond your own personal and family experience and use your liberal empathies to understand that the dire circumstances of WWII are with us always to some degree and with us now in a big way.”
That is a fair comment and believe me, I do agree with you. At this time of year, however, I always reflect on the experiences of my family which is always a moving experience for me and is one of the reasons I feel so proud and grateful for what our veterans did. I cannot thank them enough for their sacrifice both for my family and for the removal of Nazi oppression and their policies. What the Nazis did, particularly in the death camps, is so horrible that I cannot find the right words to describe it. Words like vile, dispicable, horrible just scratch the surface.
Thank you to our veterans for stopping this. May we never forget what you have done!
It is pathetic to confuse glory to those who sacrifice for us all as glory to the means of sacrifice. For some intellectual hygiene on the issue, read Holmes’s The Soldier’s Faith again. As Holmes later remarked, many fools took his speech as glorification of war.
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~mmd5f/holmesfa.htm
My grandmother was fond of saying “Empty barrels rattle most.”
She was a pacifist. She wore a poppy. So do I.
Pacifism is too simplistic. I think pacifists don’t want to think too much or too hard to come to understand the way the world actually operates. The world operates as it does and always will as such because human beings are imperfect and will always engage in many forms of conflict, including sometimes the deadly form. Sometimes there are evil leaders of countries or of terrorist organizations that will kill people regardless of anything the left says. There is no use for appeasement- it historically is proven to not work. Sometimes there are also gangs, including in Canada, which are certainly and as we speak, killing innocent people. The left and the Liberal state are pacifist in their response, making lately non-credible promises of increasing sentences for gun crimes and to, unworkably, increase social spending. It’s a cycle of violence fed by pacifism, believed in by the simple-minded left.
Gandhi was fortunate that he dealt with the Brits and not the Nazis or Sadam and his wingnuts.
I would no more allow this f**k to teach my kids than I would, Ernst Zundel.
Thanks to Art Rush, a commenter at nkzone.org, and a fellow GooglEartHead.
You can see the camps by entering these co-ordinates:
* Camp 15 (Yodok): 39d36’42.59″N, 126d50’56.85″E
* Camp 16 (Hwasong): 41d15’19.39″N, 129d29’33.94″E
* Camp 22 (Hoeryong): 42d26’49.24″N, 129d44’09.63″E
The Guardian has always had “tall” tales to tell of North Korean society.
“Someone buy this man a plane ticket to North Korea”
Are you aware of all the strings attached just getting inside the Heartland of Evil? You don’t just buy a ticket to Pyongyang…
In case your serious, contact Alejandro Cao De Benos: The Gatekeeper of North Korean tourism…
http://www.korea-dpr.com/
Also, Gandhi wasn’t exactly the total pacifist our man believes. In the Great War, he raised Indian troops for Britain. He changed his mind later re. Britain, but was still happy to have thugs on his side while fighting for independence.
In our dear Pacifist’s defense, the mythical Gandhi is far better known than the real, complex (even contradictory) one.
It’s ironic that he mentions the Holocaust, the horrors of which were really only discovered and publicized after liberation by the Allies. Until then, they were known mostly as rumours.
If it wasn’t for the sacrifice of our veterans, the Nazis may have succeeded and history would have been rewritten to remove any such memories.
God bless our veterans. Never forget.
I have just posted a GooglEarth image of “camp 22”. Jon’s comments also.
http://ashesoftyranny.blogspot.com/2005/11/camp-22.html
Another image Small Dead Animal readers might find interesting is posted at the ChronicAles…
http://nomoresocialism.blogspot.com/2005/11/regarding-reactors.html
As late as 1943 a majority of the citizens of Quebec were still opposed to fighting in WWII.
Was this because they did not understand what was at stake? Was it because they identified with Vichy France? Was it because they were pacifists? Was it because they thought someone else would do the dirty work anyway?
I think Clay McLeod’s position is essentially this: war is bad and kills people, so do not engage in it even if others do.
Now take the World War II situation. If all countries had just surrendered to Hitler and the Nazis there would have no major war and far fewer people would have been killed directly.
Mind you more Jews and Gypsies would have been exterminated than in fact were, and over time there would have been a considerable decline in the Slavic population one way or another (e.g. starvation).
And hundreds of millions of people would have come under German domination, many of them to all practical purposes reduced to serfdom or slavery. The remainder would lose any true freedom or independence, personal or national.
You choose the better result for humanity, if not for those individuals who died (fighting or murdered or starved in the war).
Mark
Ottawa
********
“Either way, I wouldn’t wear a swastika on my lapel on that day, just like I don’t wear a poppy on my lapel on Remembrance Day.”
He imagines he would even have that choice. Fool.
*********
He imagines he would have emerged from such a system as an adult who didn’t embrace and celebrate the swastika.
It’s as absurd a statement as those who believe they would have been working with the underground railroad, had they been born in the slave era…. it never occurs to them that sent back to that time, they may have grown up to proudly own a few of their own.
I think there’s a job waiting for the pacifist at the UN counting individual bodies from photo mosiacs taken in the aftermath of the Rawandan massacres. Somebody’s got to do it and it might as well be someone who doesn’t believe that a strongly led multi-national force beating back Hutu murderers from their Tutsi victims would have made a difference.
To such an individual doing the right thing has more to do with going along with the collective fluffy ideals of his committee of cappucino friends than the painful truth his heart feels.
After he gets done the Rawandan body counts for some super useful UN sponsored intiative, I’m sure the UN could get him to help out on making the sequel to their “smurfy” tribal warfare cartoon.
Kinda sad though, all those who died in past “strongly led multi-national forces” to protect our freedom and way of life died for him too. I’ll wear an extra poppy for him.
You have to remember this is B.C.. You could cram the grey matter from the entire provice into a hamster’s skull.
This dink needs some time at Guantonamo.
This guy was a joke.
The Tyee is the most blantantly biased publication in the country. It makes Fox News look impartial by comparison.
This guy, Clay McLeod is not a pacifist, he’s in a manic state and will eventually crash and burn.
He won’t weat a Popeye?
He yis wut he yis.
Bummer about his students.
Somebody, please, save those kids!
Oops that’s ‘wear’ a popeye.
Damned arthritis.
You’ve hit rock bottom when you begin to believe peace is a dirty word and anyone who promotes peace and non violence is your enemy.
Neville Chamberlain in 1938 attempted the policy of appeasement. The Munich agreement basically gave away a big chunk of Czechowslovakia to Hitler. His reasoning was that because the War Reparations from
WW 1 were so severe that they had utterly destroyed the German economy. The cost of a loaf of bread in inflation ravaged Germany was $ 1,000,000 Dmarks. Hitler said thanks very much then took Poland
Denmark and of course France.
Hitler wasn’t as we all know interested in peace he was building an Empire. One based on Slavery. When it was all said and done 100,000,000 people died in that war. It is thought in some circles that had Neville Chamberlain not tried to negotiotiate with Hitler the West would have armed and gone to confront Hitler far earlier. Hitler had been arming for at least 3 years before the West. Possibly saving countless millions of lives. Still it was no sure thing the West could win. Germany was strong and the west was still recouvering from WW 1.
By the time Hitler came along peoples attitudes were very much like this guys. Sick of War and most western economies devestated themselves by the depression they simply had no stomach for another war.
History is rife with people like this guy and it typically comes to no good end. They decry the military it abuses their sensabilities.Invariable far more misery is created and life lost because of people like this guy. They ignore the past and the lessons it teachs. Every generation gets it’s enlightened types and usually they get their way. No one wants war and so can be persuaded by the evil this man represents. Yes Evil, his posturing if it wins the day will ultimately cost far
more lives and misery than maintaining a strong military. Aggressors think twice if
war looks difficult.
With most of the West already disarmed today should an aggressor like Hitler appear the West dosn’t have many options. The weaker we become the more palatable the Nuclear option becomes. Imagine if you will the Chinese marching West through Russia. (Most of Russia’s resources are in Siberia and the Eastern part of the country.) Well they take what they want but keep going. They can mount an army of 2,000,000 men at least. Should they continue to march west and right into Alaska or should it turn out that those 6 million muslims around France
turn out to be able to field an Army of say 350,000 men and have the ability to arm them
and it seems that is not out of the question then guys like this once he see’s what is happening and is gripped with fear in a corner whimpering looking for someone to save him, it will again fall to our young men again to go and die in far greater numbers than should have been necessary.
Just as a side note the arrognace of these folks knows no bounds. Teachers in Tacoma Wash.
while the children were out at recess, went into the kids knapsacks and stole their school supplies
and gave those supplies to the collective, distributed to all the kids. It takes minds like these to
come up with a position like this guys, on the poppy.
Link to the teacher school supply theft here.
http://www.americandaily.com/article/10086
“The Tyee is the most blantantly biased publication in the country. ”
I take it you’ve never read the Western Standard.
Clay get over it.
My great grand father fought in the Franco-Prussian War 1870-71. “Medaille de Honeur”
My grand father fought in WWI, and spent 4 years on the russian front. 3 Iron Crosses for his efforts.
My father fought in the Hitler Youth, integrated into the SS units.
My mother, grew up in Frankenstein, Silesia 60km from the Gross Rosen concentration camp, and 180 km from Auschwitz. My family heritage has seen so much government sponsored violence it would make your head spin.
My wife is of Dutch origin, her family lived under 5 years of Nazi occupation.
I wear a poppy even though my family has historically been the aggressors.
What the HELL is your excuse???!!!
Yours sincerely,
Hans Rupprecht
Famous Gun Nuts quotes:
“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.” Ghandi
“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” The Dali Lama
Sounds like these guys knew a thing or two about where the bear shit in the buck brush.
Flatlander,
I think “did not understand what was at stake” pretty much sums it up. Even in the 1970s, the typical separatist position (at least, typical of the separatist students I met) was that it was England’s war, so why should Quebec fight? Talk about blinkered.
Thanks for the insight, Chris. I have never really understood the roots of separatist feeling, or why it ebbs and flows.
Conscientious objectors and just objectors
You have likely already seen this, a justification by a Kelowna schoolteacher, Clay McLeod, for why he does not wear the poppy. Different bloggers (see here, here, here, and especially here and here) are focusing upon the intrinsic weakness in McLeod�…
Before long, leftist moonbats like this benighted fool will be arguing that had we stayed out of the war, the Nazis would have made the world a safer place by preventing the state of Israel from ever coming into existence.
Count on it.
Ah yes, it is nice to see Lefty McClelland has done a driveby in this comments section too. Always has to say something, even if it is never relevent or constructive. No doubt he will have a retort for this .
Back on the thread, this twerp (the anti-poppy teacher) may be entitled to his own opinion, but he crosses over the line when he uses his position of influence as a teacher to give a slanted and biased view to his students. He also misses the point as does RACHEL GIESE in the toronto Sun and her column about not wearing a poppy but for the exact opposite reasoning.
To wear a poppy shows that you remember those who sacrificed their lives so that we may have the opportunity to freely participate in this blog and almost any other facet of our lives as we know it. A great many of these vets still carry the scars (both emotional and physical) of “the war to end all wars” or the Korean “police action” or the multitudes of peacekeeping tours.
RACHEL GIESE’s column is at
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Giese_Rachel/2005/11/11/1302037.html