SLXOwft :-
“As a history student I was taught to examine the evidence and come to a dispassionate conclusion discarding the filter of current mores; I am (perhaps unfortunately) irritated when others do not.”
That's not how the new order works though. The words Colonial Warmonger are enough to condemn you, guilty or not. The perception alone suffices. An entire armed service can be characterised by the words :-
Crushing insurrection with the indiscriminate use of aerial bombs and poison gas against civilian homes. After an incident in which British aircraft reportedly machine gunned women and children, Churchill himself protested to the Chief of Air Staff over the brutality of these methods and called for the court martial of those responsible. This was decidedly not the RAF's finest hour.
Never mind that they are unsubstantiated, they exist, that is enough! That is the new order now, and it reminds us that is how the old order worked too. An anonymous denunciation, a hammering on the door at 0300 and you were gone, never to be seen again. Whether their armbands bore swastikas or hammers and sickles it was all the same. As a cynical old East German general once explained, when asked how come he was now a senior member of Party Security, having had a similar post in the Gestapo, "Left Wing, Right Wing, they all need policemens!".
Irritate you? It scares the life out of me!