Remembrance Day

I make it a point to go to the Cenotaph every Remembrance Day.

For me, today is one of the most important days of the year. It reminds me that the peace and prosperity we enjoy has been bought and paid for and that we must be vigilant to preserve it.

Remembrance Day also reminds me of the mere triviality of many of my worries. The people who provided us this peace did so selflessly. They suffered lost years, lost innocence, lost limbs and lost lives. They saw the horrors of war; horrors we dare not imagine. These images haunt them and not us.

And all they ask is that we remember; not their glory, but their sacrifice. They ask us to remember so our societies can be more vigilant than the leaders of their times and avoid the calamities they endured.

Peace HAS a price. And vigilance is less expensive than the alternative. There were then as there are now people ruled by an ideology of intolerance and hatred and greed and avarice. They are inclined to destroy us if we let them. We can fight them now, or we can fight them later at a far higher price.

This is their lesson.

I’m reading an article on CNN about a US District Court judge in San Francisco who has declared the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional.

At issue is the Pledge’s reference to God. The argument is that the Pledge coerces children to affirm the existence of God.

I don’t think it does.

Whether YOU believe in God or not you cannot deny that the United States of America (and the rest of the Americas for that matter) is a Christian nation. This is to say, that most of the people practicing a religion choose Jesus Christ as their savior and follow some Christian belief structure. The same was true of the founders of United States of America. And when they constructed and adapted the Constitution they did so with their faith as a building block.

So, the phrase ‘under God’ could be taken to acknowledge that the nation was built and is maintained under the guidance of the teachings, as perceived by many, of a God. I think it falls short of requiring that the individual reciting the Pledge (or their parents) affirm the existence of or believe in any God.

This is a prime example of political correctness run amok. This is a tradition in which very few can find offense. Yet it may be banned to appease the miniscule number of parents who disagree with its use because of their own interpretation. This is undemocratic. It is alarming when a Constitution, a cornerstone of democracy, is used to circumvent democracy.

I am Canadian so, of course, I have never recited the Pledge. But this still bothers me as I see this same kind of nonsense going on here.

On Monday 12SEP2005 I sent this to the Editor of my local paper; The Record. It is main local daily paper published for Waterloo Region. In my opinion, it is not a balanced paper. It leans quite a bit to the left and, like most print media in Canada, is in the Liberals' back pocket.

The fact that I have to choose between supporting a paper like this or not knowing what goes on in my community bothers me.

I indeed was called last week by a saleslady. I did not mention to her that we used to subscribe but cancelled it for the reasons stated and because we would only get 3 or 4 of the six editions actually delivered to us each week. The content was most important to me; the reliable delivery most important to my wife.

I expect no response.

Good day,

I saw the front page on Sunday and unless I was mistaken it is yet another reason to not buy your paper. I used to subscribe but I haven’t for a long while.

I think the gist of the article was that we have a shameful number of people in the Region who are living below the poverty line. And you quoted a number in the order of 47,000.

Well, considering the fact that the definition of poverty is something like 'the least fortunate 10% of the population' and the fact that the population of Waterloo Region is approaching 500,000; don't you think this is a non-story?

Now, if I got the wrong end of the stick and indeed the story was substantive, for a change, then I apologize. But I simply could not bring myself to buy your left-leaning, socialist rag. Not to worry though; most papers in Canada are as balanced as yours. I was assured by the saleslady who called last week to ask me to subscribe that 'a lot has changed at The Record in the last six months'. But I guess they haven't.
I assured her that The Record would not likely change to get me as a reader as they would lose more readers than I am worth. The public has been spoon-fed unbalanced tripe for so long by the print media that truth and logic would now be as palatable to them as sour milk.

Don't bother printing this in your column for my benefit, I won't be reading it.

Regards,