D-Day

Great Satan's Girlfriend reminds me that today is June 6, the 64th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.



D-Day is one of the most important reminders of the sacrafices are, at times, unavoidable in the cause of freedom and democracy.

It is also a reminder, for all of our insecurities about liberal values being weak in the face of governing philosophies of force and repression, that liberal democratic values clearly make us stronger, by any objective standard.

Not only do those intimidated by the likes of Hitler and his formidable use of force for whatever purposes they deemed worthy forget that he lost this battle and that war, but that all of the serious governing philosophies of force - Nazism, Communism, Fascism, imperialism, theocracy and Jihadism, Baathism and other cults of personality - have all either long since lost power or grow weaker with the march of freedom.

In the case of Normandy, that was for a reason:

"Although there were several well-known disputes among the Allied commanders, their tactics and strategy were essentially determined by agreement between the main commanders. By contrast, the German leaders were bullied and their decisions interfered with by Hitler, controlling the battle from a distance with little knowledge of local conditions."

What is missing is not an empirical basis for the notion that freedom and democracy serve us better, even in wartime.

What is missing is the courage for us to acknowledge it as so, so scared are we of our own liberal democratic shadows and so much do we lack confidence in our own decency and nobility of purpose.

It need not be that way.

And today is a good day to remember that.