ANALYSIS
A 100-year-old Royal Navy veteran named Alec Penstone recently spoke some powerful words that left UK TV hosts speechless. He said the friends he buried in World War II gave their lives “for what?” — pointing out that today’s Britain has lost the freedom they fought for.
The clip tells you everything you need to know about how far the UK has fallen recently. Penstone went on Good Morning Britain and said something that everyone, including Americans, needs to hear.
The hosts of Good Morning Britain asked him, “What does Remembrance Sunday mean for you? What is your message?”
He replied, “My message is, I can see in my mind’s eye, there was rows and rows of white stones of all the hundreds of my friends and everybody else that gave their lives for what? The country of today. No, I’m sorry. The sacrifice wasn’t worth the result that it is now. What we fought for was our freedom. We fought for it even now. It’s a downside worse than what it was when I fought for it.”
That’s not bitterness talking. You can hear the heartbreak in his voice. This is a man who watched his friends die for a nation to promise to uphold freedoms, and now he’s wondering if that freedom even exists anymore. It’s really sad to watch and he’s not wrong to ask.
In the UK today, as we’ve reported here at CBN many times, the freedoms that he and his comrades had bled for, they’re starting to disappear.
We’ve seen Christians being arrested simply for praying silently outside abortion clinics. These are thought crimes happening, and it’s not only just a thought crime, it’s about prayer.
We’ve seen street preachers again and again, men peacefully sharing the gospel, handcuffed in public squares and hauled off and taken away. We’ve seen it again and again.
And it’s not just speech in the streets, it’s speech online. Police have literally shown up at people’s homes over things that they tweeted. One British man was arrested in the middle of the night at his home. They busted into his home and took him away because he posted an anti-Hamas meme. This is a terror organization and you’re getting arrested for posting anti-Hamas memes.
Another, a comedian who is the writer behind Father Ted, was detained for social media comments about gender ideology.
This is not the country that Alec Penstone fought and bled for and saw his brothers fight and die for. They are supposed to be upholding freedom of thought, speech, and faith. We’re seeing it slip away, and at the same time, that’s happening; the fabric of British life is being torn apart at the seams by things like unchecked immigration and cultural fragmentation.
Former Minister Michael Gove recently said it outright: mass migration has changed Britain so rapidly that the shared culture can’t keep up. You see it in neighborhoods that no longer feel British, entire towns where assimilation has broken down, and authorities are too afraid to enforce their own laws for fear of being offensive.
From riots sparked by ethnic tensions to hotels and small villages being overwhelmed by waves of asylum seekers, half of Britons now say their culture is changing too fast, and national pride has plunged to record lows. So when Alec Penstone says “it wasn’t worth it,” it really breaks your heart because he’s looking at the country he risked his life for and seeing leaders who’ve squandered that legacy of freedom he and his fallen brothers in arms paid for in blood.
But here’s another important truth. His service and his friends and his brothers in arms, their sacrifice was worth it because freedom, while it might be hanging on by a thread in some areas, it isn’t completely dead yet. It still lives in every believer who prays in public, who still preached the gospel out on the streets, and who still speak truth no matter the cost.
Mr. Penstone, your generation built the foundation and despite the obvious setbacks and challenges we’re dealing with right now, there are still millions of Britons and Americans over here who will continue the fight for freedom with courage and conviction and faith.
So once again, sir, thank you for your service and God bless.
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