Originally posted by: LtPage1
1. It's a statement of dissent.
2. There is no such thing as an "anti-American" comment. Freedom of speech means just that.
3. You don't have to earn the right to criticize your country.
4. Being "harder on terrorism" and being more likely to attack the Middle East is the best way to help the terrorists. The election of Barack Obama is the absolute worst thing that could have happened to Islamist recruitment.
5. Seriously. How is #4 not the biggest "Wow, duh" statement you've ever heard?
edit:
Originally posted by: Carmen813
It's the soldier, not the reporter who has given us
Freedom of the Press.
It's the soldier, not the poet, who has given us
Freedom of Speech.
It's the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the
Freedom to Demonstrate.
It's the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the
Right to a Fair Trial.
It's the soldier who salutes the flag, serves under the flag and
whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who gives the protestor the right to burn the flag.
No one fucking
gave me my rights. Freedoms of press, speech, assembly, and trial are
not fucking privileges to be meted out whenever the men with guns in our society decide it would be okay.
I absolutely reject your idea that soldiers are a separate, privileged class apart from reporters, poets, campus organizers, and lawyers. I'd stand up and fight alongside career soldiers if I could be convinced that our basic freedoms were under attack-- but here, now, today-- it seems pretty clear that the preservation of these rights is under attack from our military establishment. I value these rights first, and our military as a necessary tool to get to and preserve these rights-- you seem to be valuing some notion of nation and military first, and our rights as some sort of byproduct of how great it is to be an American.
I apologize if it seems like I jumped all over you and exaggerated your words, but I think it's pretty clear how strongly I feel about this. I salute the flag and our soldiers because they stand for those rights, and not because I owe some sort of perverse and worshipful gratitude for deigning to grant me some niceties.
.../okay, deep breath. Whew.