Remembrance Day is tomorrow.  Kids sent overseas to protect our sovereignity and freedom.  Do we still have that freedom? Not as they defined it then.  Instead, we have  freedom, Dystopia style.

Freedom to own a house, and live a good life with an education, a family,  a car and a job, but you also have to own a debt for most of your adult life.  Our children live in daycare and in schools while we work to provide for them, and most of their social interaction and learning comes from the caregivers and teachers in these institutions.  Freedom to travel, if we are willing to suffer the indignity of customs searches and passport checks.  Police road checks are so normal these days that no one dares anymore to forget their driver's identification at home. Freedom to work if we are willing to pay 47% of our income in GST, PST, Income Tax, property tax, dog/motor vehicle/business licensing fees.  Freedom of privacy is available to those who wish to give up the social interaction of social media. Freedom to speak out and to criticise our leaders if we are willing to endure possible ongoing surveilance by their police forces for being a possible terrorist threat.  Freedom to use a cell phone, although anything we say on it can be heard and recorded by government surveilance.  Freedom from terrorists while remembering we can, ourselves be considered a terrorist threat at any time.

Ours is now a contingent sort of freedom with the alternative being the entrance to a wasteland of social isolation and extreme poverty.  Something those brave young men and women never could have thought of when they gave their lives (and they all did, in one way or another).  But these days it could be worse and these men and women will always deserve our rememberance and our heartfelt gratitude for their sacrifice for so many.