“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

Has it come to this?

In showing their contempt for all of us, anti-vaxxers are strongly suspected of being behind the vandalizing of the war memorial in Rotary Park this week and in Kelowna they brazenly disrupted the Remembrance Day ceremony itself.

How dare they!

Who the hell was it who fought and died for their freedom to do such a grotesque thing if it wasn’t the veterans? Do they think they could have got away with such a cowardly act in Hitler’s Germany? Stalin’s Russia? Mussolini’s Italy or Chairman Mao’s China?

I don’t like being crude, but on this sad occasion I will be and ask these crude cretins if they’ll take their heads out of their butts long enough to do a bit of thinking about the tragedy of war and the millions of deaths it has rained down on us in the past century alone: First World War – 10 million military deaths and seven million civilians. Second World War – 60 million military and civilian deaths combined, but this is an estimate because no one is really sure how many died because the carnage was so great.

That’s who you’re dissing you unfeeling, shameless, dolts.

You should be proud of the fact that close to 1,000 veterans’ names are carved in granite in The Wall of Honour in Rotary Park and you insulted every damn one of them. Your shame is unfathomable, not that it bothers you I suspect.

I know that some of you are sincerely opposed to vaccinations for what you believe are sound reasons though for the life of me I can’t fathom your reasoning. The vaccinations given today are free and safe and considered one of the greatest triumphs in public health history. Vaccinations eliminated smallpox, which used to kill thousands, many of them aboriginal. It’s vaccinations that brought polio to the brink of extinction and largely banished diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, and several others from the face of the earth. Maybe that doesn’t impress you but it sure as hell impresses the rest of us and you might show some respect for that even if you don’t agree.

But I sense many of you are opposed to vaccinations for other misguided reasons. Some of you are just anarchists who will oppose anything the majority believes in. Others just hate government, all governments and will go to almost any length to oppose democratic governments elected by a majority of the people.

But some of your reasons are darker. I detect a whiff of QAnon among you as you wait for Elvis and JFK to return from the grave and accuse Hillary Clinton of running a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor in Washington DC.

I saw one of your demonstrations in front of City Hall a while back and detected a few Trumpsters in the crowd though I must say they were better behaved than The Donald. And some of you are just graffiti artists and vandals that will desecrate anything for a cheap joke or a laugh.

But the sad fact of the matter is you’re the kind of person who really doesn’t value anything, little alone our veterans. You don’t seem to realize that civilization and all its benefits doesn’t come free. It also comes with laws and regulations that protect the majority and can’t be opted out of just on a whim. Civilization elevates all of us. Makes us better people and levels the playing field – or at least tries to – for the poor, the sick, the persecuted and those with a different skin colour than the majority.

Why do you think so many veterans fought and died if it wasn’t to create a civilization that makes life better for us all – including you – even though you seem to little appreciate it? In vandalizing and disrupting Remembrance Day this week you showed all the world just how uncivilized you truly are.

A little reflection on this might do you a world of good.

Lead image: Some of the aftermath of the Dieppe landing by Canadian troops on August 19, 1942. More than 900 Canadians lost their lives that day. Image from the Canadian Encyclopedia

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who has done a lot of stupid things in his life too, but not this.

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