Supposedly the purpose of Memorial Day is to remember and honor those who died while fighting in our nation's wars.

I think it's pretty obvious that we have failed, and are failing, in both cases.

Let's start with remembering.

26% of Americans don't know who we fought in our Revolution.

More than half of Americans are unaware that we are bombing Afghanistan, eventhough we've been doing so for 15 years. The vast majority don't know that we are bombing Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen.

Americans are famously ignorant of the rest of the world, so why shouldn't that also apply to our foreign wars?

Simply, most Americans don't remember the wars we fought, aren't aware of the ones we are fighting, nor do we care to educate ourselves, and that clearly shows a lack of respect for those who gave their lives.

So how do we honor those we never respected?

Well, we fly lots of flags. We wear red, white, and blue colored clothing. We talk about patriotism and sacrifice, while pretending we know something about the details.

In other words, empty virtue signaling.

It's no different from liberals pretending to care about refugees, while supporting the wars that caused them to be refugees, except this is conservative virtue signaling. It's just like when Republicans say they support the troops while wanting to gut the VA.

About 20 veterans will commit suicide today.

It's all transparently phony.

Let's consider honoring those who sacrificed so much by not making more dead soldiers.

What is so unusual today is the indifference to the state of war.

Through 99% of human history, losing a war meant the losing generals would also have their heads separated from their bodies, while kings would lose land, fortunes, and sometimes their lives. Wars had consequences.

Everyone from the peasant to the royal court was aware of how the war was going.

Not anymore.

Today only 15% think we are winning the GWOT, and no one cares enough to demand accountability.

Fifteen years after invading Afghanistan we are doing another hopeless troop surge, but I dare you to find an anti-war protest.

We've spent $6 Trillion in this losing effort, effectively bankrupting the nation, and all people can do is shrug.



What’s more, the war in Afghanistan barely features on our front pages. During the past two years it has not even made it into the top 10 news stories.

In an ironic way this indifference is actually well-deserved.

Wars are never really about what we are told, and the children who fight and die in them sacrifice for causes that are never worthy of their sacrifice.



The fervent pomp of Arlington to me always exudes desperation, as though we’re trying to suppress any acknowledgement that war’s the silliest thing people do. We sort ourselves into teams based on imaginary lines, dress up in costumes, pledge allegiance to pieces of cloth, and then mercilessly slaughter total strangers.