Karen, Roosevelt's comments = a bunch of dopey slogans.
For example: <The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer. >
I gather that means he thinks the Quakers, Mohandas Ghandi, and Amish as bad for humanity as Adolf Hitler, Adolf Eichmann, Lt William Calley, Saddam Hussein, Charlie Manson, Tim McVeigh, the American Taleban, Mr Shoebomber, Dr Mengele, Tojo, Mao ...
Roosevelt was obviously not an intellectual giant.
My father's WWI decorated hero cousin, Ormond Burton, was imprisoned during WWII for speaking [so much for free speech] as a pacifist. dnzb.govt.nz He had changed his mind about the consequences of war. The cowardly judge who imprisoned him no doubt did not spend years wading through blood at Gallipoli and in the trenches of France, but saw fit to stop such an evil-doing pacifist during WWII.
Fighting for freedom of thought and speech? Not in NZ:
<At his Supreme Court trial on 23 October 1942, Burton argued for his democratic right to think and speak as conscience dictated. Justice Archibald Blair disagreed, telling the jury it was a time when the mouths of ‘cranks’ would have to shut. The jury found Burton guilty, but recommended mercy. Under the emergency regulations the maximum sentence was 12 months’ imprisonment, but Blair invoked a rarely used provision in the 1910 Crimes Amendment Act and sentenced Burton to 2½ years. He was offered immediate freedom if he agreed to refrain from writing or speaking on pacifism, but he rejected the offer. >
Mqurice |
