Saturday, November 12, 2011

A Sad Encounter on Remembrance Day

       On Remembrance day I met my neighbor in the back alley. He asked me if I had been to the remembrance day activities. I told him I hadn't been to the ceremonies. He then got on a rather nasty rant. 


       He stated that anybody who doesn't go to the Remembrance day ceremonies should not be able to take advantage of the day off and should remain at work. We had talked about Hitler and that Hitler had to be stopped because he was a threat to the world. If Hitler had taken over we would have lost all freedoms and would have had to conduct ourselves exactly to Hitler's wishes. I couldn't give any more points to my neighbor as by this time he turned on his heal and left as he does not like nor is he able to defend his views


      Bloggers I follow who  posted on remembrance made  excellent points about remembering the men and women who fought to maintain our freedom. Each post was different. Each post was very significant. I'm sure that each blogger had their own way to remember and I would guess that very few attended a formal ceremony.


     The sad thing that my neighbor had in his head was that all people should be forced to remember the same way. To me that's not what freedom is.  With my neighbor's view, how long would it be before other forms of directed behavior would be prescribed? How long would it be before we would have another madman who would try to take our freedom away? How many people who would be forced to attend remembrance services would actually remember anything? How long would it be before we would lose other freedoms?


     On a Remembrance day I was saddened to hear a rant about losing the freedom to remember in a variety of ways.