It is nearing Remembrance Day in Canada, when people wear poppies and honour those who died in war. I remember, when I was in the army, my Master Corporal was inspecting my dress uniform on a Remembrance Day parade, and he got emotional, and told me this day was about people like me, people who fought and died for our freedoms and for our country.

It is certainly a difficult issue for me to write about as a Libertarian. No doubt there were evil forces at work during the holocaust, and I am no holocaust denier. People died in NAZI controlled Germany at the hands of an evil government who convinced young naive soldiers their cause was the right one.

While I only spent a few short years in the army, it was a path down the road to cynicism. I spent much time doing weapons training, learning to kill, and the few Remembrance Day parades I observed each one calcified my cynicism rather than instilling in me any kind of naive patriotism.

No doubt, a lot of good people died for what they believed was a good cause, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. They died because they were told by their governments that “We Are Right” which is what WAR might as well stand for.

I often wonder now, after knowing how corrupt governments are, how can anyone be willing to kill, and be killed for a government that they can barely stand voting for, but are willing to invade another man’s territory, and impose their wills on them, up to the point of death. I can say with certainty that if my freedoms here in the west depend on me killing another man in a foreign country, I want none of it. That is not freedom, that is statism. The notion that my way of life is so superior that is must be imposed on other regions, by force, is repugnant to me.

Had NAZI soldiers, in the lowest of ranks, dug their heels in against the government, and questioned the propaganda, if people today in the “free” world would question the propaganda, none of this would be necessary, and we wouldn’t need days which honour those who died THINKING they were doing the right thing.

I will use Remembrance Day to observe what blind obedience to governments gets us as a human race. We are one bad election away from being just as bad as NAZI Germany, no one is immune to this kind of blind patriotism that drives men to the degree of insanity required to be willing to kill in the name of a stuffed shirt who waves his hand.

I am proud to say that no mass murder, zero nukes have been dropped in the name of Anarchy, or self ownership, but not so much can be said for governments.