The Doom That Came to Cowtown

There's a picture meme running around Facebook right now that I've included below:



A friend conveyed the same sentiment in his status update in a much more erudite manner without the picture. He was not alone.

Does anyone other than me think this is actually somewhat disrespectful of veterans? We'll leave aside the fact that Remembrance Day is actually meant for remembering armed forces members who have died in the line of duty. One could easily reword the picture to reflect that.

Now I'm someone who has great respect for what our veterans have done. We ask them to do a difficult, sometimes life-threatening job and they don't often get thanks for it. Sometimes they do things I'd rather they didn't do, but that's not really their fault so much as it is the government that gives them their assignments. I can disagree with our military being in Afghanistan, and I can think that they're not accomplishing much while there, but that doesn't mean they're not trying and they're not in danger.

So yes, I respect our soldiers and our veterans.

My big objection is using veterans for emotional blackmail. Don't do X because Veterans! It's like the very similar argument of Think of the Children. It's not something you say if you are interested in debating something on its merits; You say it when you want to stifle debate. After all, you couldn't possibly support X, that means you hate our troops!

Completely unrelated to this, I agree that retailers get into Christmas-mode way too early (I know the meme says decorations, but it's really retailers who are guilty of this 99% of the time). If I had my druthers, it wouldn't begin until much later than November 12 - I'd put it at the American Thanksgiving weekend. This gives everyone time to prepare for Black Friday. A month-long span that begins and ends with holiday weekends should be plenty.

In short, there might be damn good reasons why we would want to limit Christmas. Or not, I suspect most people just find it a little exhausting rather than an affront. I say live-and-let-live. If a retailer wants to go all Christmas-y starting in July, it's no skin off my nose. I might decide not to shop there because it's irritating, but in the end I'll probably base my purchasing decisions on other criteria, like price or convenience. If too-early Christmas means that much to you, don't shop there. That means some personal inconvenience as you search for alternatives though and I bet most of the people who've posted this meme aren't going to put any more effort into this than clicking on "like". And that puts memes like this firmly into the realm of slacktivism - important enough to share, not important enough to take any real action. It's a little like prayer that way. As for supporting veterans by not doing something - I can claim I'm patriotic by not putting up decorations. It's so much easier than actually doing something, like attending Remembrance Day ceremonies. I support Canada's Justice system by not pissing on the courthouse steps! Easy!

I suppose one could simply actually ask a veteran their opinion in the matter - whether they think we should control behaviour prior to November 12th. I suspect they don't think that. However "veterans" is not some platonic ideal of a class of people who all share the same opinion. My dad served in the Canadian Forces (albeit not during wartime) and he couldn't get enough of Christmas - it was his favourite holiday. Other veterans might not celebrate Christmas at all.

On the subject of using veterans as your club to shame people? I'm guessing they like that even less than early Christmas decorations.

Looking in my email's spam folder I see this message:

Sarah Sent You A Message

I loved your fb pic
we live close i was wondering if you would like to hookup sometime?
Check out my profile here and tell me what you think.

My Facebook picture? Me being dragged screaming into a cave by an unseen, possibly tentacled, force.