Quote:
Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
But surely this can't be tolerated much longer.
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Without trying to trivialize the sentiment that caused you to post this, let me say just three things.
First, you're right to think that this is a horrible thing. Kids shouldn't have to die like that. No one should. No parent should ever see their kid die an unnatural death, and that's what's happening. There should be no place for violence among thinking people, and I don't know anyone who doesn't hate this side of it all. But, how far do you take a non-violent stand? If you see a kid being beaten across the road, do you walk past quickly because you can't be violent, because violence is wrong and you refuse to add to it? What value do you serve when you do that? If there is a way to reconcile these moving and near-sacred pictures with the values we do hold, one would almost have to find a way to also post the pictures of the thousands, hundreds of thousands, really, of the cute young kids, and the new brides, and the proud first-time dads, and the hard-working shopkeepers, and the tired and frail grandparents, all of whom are now going to live, and live a much better life, because those other kids, our kids, gave their lives to free them from a despotic and murderous tyrant. Yeah, you have to take into account what those kids died FOR, not just OF. I think that any one of us, if we could have lost our life but killed Tim McVeigh in the process, would consider it a worthwhile thing. You have to consider the why, both to be able to view this with balance and full information, and to avoid cheapening those kids' sacrifice.
A sense of proportion also helps. There was a time when, between my friends and my relatives, we were going to one or two of those funerals every month. Personally, not just seeing the pictures. I can tell you when most of the big firefights and incursions happened by pulling out the old funeral handouts. 58,000 in that conflict. 600 (I think) in this one so far. During the time those 600 died, there were about 44,000 traffic deaths in this country. I don't mean for a minute to belittle what has happened to these kids. But this is not World War II. Proportion is important, if only to be able to accurately guage the loss against the freedoms and the lives that we hope to gain for the world, and for us.
Finally, I would hope that you wouldn't presume to use these kids' deaths in support of a belief that they may have strongly opposed. I once wore an antiwar symbol to a funeral of a friend's older brother. His mother, pretty much collapsing with grief, found the time and the will to take me aside and tell me that Roddie had believed in what he was doing, had told her that he knew the risks but, after coming across the third wasted village full of dead civilians in his first couple of weeks, knew he was in the right place. She told me that she hated the war as much as I did, but that I was showing a disrespect for something Roddie willingly and proudly gave his life for, and maybe I could just wear my jacket over the symbol? They may make convenient tokens, but things aren't always as simple as we'd like them to be.
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