Monday, May 28, 2012

How MSNBC and Chris Hayes Choose to Remember Our Fallen

This Memorial Day weekend, we witnessed MSNBC pundit Chris Hayes saying that he's "uncomfortable" calling our fallen soldiers "heroes," and suggests that we call them "something more neutral." That the title of "hero" is "rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war."
His contention is that our society's choice to remember our fallen soldiers as "heroic" is tantamount to warmongering.  The first thought that comes to mind is probably how utterly ridiculous that contention is. But when you wade through his elitist condescension toward the sacrifices made by our soldiers- an obvious and lamentable remnant of 60's counterculturalism- you see that these are really nothing more than the words of a depraved creature.

This quote by John Stuart Mill, found below, is a profound observation about war- and as relevant now as it has ever been.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
It is safe to say- Chris Hayes and his ilk embody the "ugliest of things" that Mill spoke of, disguised as intellectualism and compassion. This Memorial Day, may God keep our fallen heroes, and may God continue to bless America.

William Sullivan

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