PICK A BETTER COUNTRY (FROM 2012)

Sadly the last century's horrific death tolls seem not to have taught us two basic principles that can carry us peacefully through most of our lives: Do what you are able to do for yourself and Mind your own Business. Nevertheless, through some quirk or inherent problem in the human psyche, Totalitarianism of some type seems to occur perhaps as often as once a generation. 

As I have stated before, the isms of the past century did not hold much appeal for me. We were always aware that our grandparents homeland was 'a prison' to millions, who were not as lucky as we were to have left before the Communists so ably demonstrated what losing your freedom really meant. (See also my blog of 10/21/2011 Some comments about the 'isms' that ravaged the 20th Century)

Instead, of a Berlin Wall to keep us in, two generations of my family were happy to be in a new country that did not need to prevent people from leaving. In fact, instead we lived in Canada, where someday we might, like the United States, have to somehow try and keep people out.

As Winston Churchill once said, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” My thinking exactly.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, later President of the United States, as Commanding General of the Allied Forces, made certain that hundreds of photographs were taken of the Concentration Camps in Germany and othe parts of Europe. He stated that without this, someday someone would deny it ever happened. How quickly this became reality. 

If people would consider that our system may be the least worst one in history, they would perhaps appreciate more what our country has accomplished in its brief history. Today's trend of trying to 'interpret' history to suit current popular sentiments, deprives us of understanding the times during which the events occurred.

A book such as "Eyewitnesses to History" related the accounts of people who were present when various historical events occured. For example, the Hindenburg Explosion in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937.

Keeping contemporary records and studying history as it was written, seems an excellent way for us to record and share events with both present, and perhaps more importantly, future generations.  They would soon learn that many other experiments were tried, and found in practice, to be considerably worse.

I hope that like me other Canadians, at the very least, appreciate that we enjoy greater freedoms than a hundred other countries of the world, even today. 

In fact, many people who emigrate to Canada immediately enjoy much greater freedom, than they ever would have in their native lands. This fact, however, does not stop some of them from trying to force us to accept some idea of theirs of yet another 'utopian' home (away from home) that never could or would exist where they came from. 

What is missing in the 'nationalistic' longings of immigrants, my own included, is the gratitude for and appreciation that the way of life and government which exists here in North America was and is an experiment which created a unique place on earth never tried before and which for the first time in history, accepted almost anyone who wanted to join in and contribute to it. 


NOTE: SEE ALSO - DON'T TRIVIALIZE TRAGEDY - FROM OCTOBER 22, 2011