[Peace-discuss] YMCA partners with ARMY

[Matt Reichel]

While there is some small percentage of people who join the military out of 
financial desparation, recent reports detailing how people my age (and 
younger) in the army have behaved reveal that, in fact, they think life is a 
video game and their intent is to score some kills. This makes my fellow 
countrymen sound like "little Eichmann" in my mind.

And before the ACLU made a drastic shift to the right, a la Sierra Club, 
they had a firm grasp on what free speech is. In fact, if anyone's actually 
bothered to read the philosophical texts at the backdrop of liberalism, you 
realize that "free speech" is an INDIVIDUAL's right to be used in DEFENSE 
against tyrannous institutions LIKE government, the military, and 
corporations. As such, corporations shouldnt have this right (though they 
do), and the world's largest killing machine should not have that same 
right. They don't need it.

Now if these recruiters were individuals out there with their own grassroots 
organization trying to promote the causes of the military or something: 
that's fine. But such is not the case.

Although, I can imagine that the Uni administration (supposedly "liberal", 
though happily presiding over Chief Illiniwek, etc etc) would use the free 
speech card to defend this inane intrusion.

And no reason to have the military removed. Just showing up alongside with 
photos of some of the things people can expect from a life in the military 
is your free speech allowing everyone else to not be lied to. It's a public 
service.



>From: Neil Parthun <parthun at uiuc.edu>
>To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] YMCA partners with ARMY
>Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 23:13:33 -0600
>
>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
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