[Peace-discuss] YMCA partners with ARMY

[Neil Parthun]

The guise of free speech -- that's hilarious.

Any group in this country is guaranteed free speech under the
1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  If we are to censor
speech of a group we do not like, then what is to stop other
groups from censoring us because something we say may not be
liked.  I may not like what they have to say but I will defend
to my death their right to peacefully state what they want to say.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell
people what they do not want to hear. -- George Orwell

While we may disagree with the tactics of the militarists, it
is asinine and sickening to throw everbody in the military
into the "cold, heartless killers" category.  There is a
distinction between the militarists in power making
the orders and the people that sign up for the military to do
the grunt work.  To draw them as all evil and promoters of
violence, oppression etc. is asinine, inhumane and sickening.
 Most people in the military do it to make money or pay for
college educations -- their business is not wanting to be a
stone cold killer, no matter how much vitriol spewed says
otherwise.  Their leaders in the Oval Office etc. are simply
using them to their own means.  This distinction needs to be
drawn.  It's like yelling "Gestapo!" at the mailman simply
because he has a uniform on.
Neil

OoOoOoOoO...
I can't afford to hate people. I haven't got that kind of time.
[kanji watanabe from "ikiru" (1952)]

Scholarship is essentially confirming your early paranoia through a deeper factual analysis.
[murray rothbard]

neil parthun || senior, history || parthun at uiuc.edu