Here are a couple of editorials and letters to the editor I want to respond to. I'm putting my comments here, because I already send too many letters to the editor and I don't want to be a pest. If you read this blog, you asked for it.


No.1

Invaders are hypocrites

I keep wondering how our soldiers have the audacity to express anger over Iraqi tactics when the United States is the renegade, aggressor nation. Our country has shown that it has no deference for the world community or the United Nations mission of peaceful resolution and adjudication of the world's problems.

So, why should the Iraqis show any respect for the rules and conventions that were set up to govern the behavior of war? American patriots were quite "rude" in their civilian-clothed attacks, from the cover of trees, when those poor Brits had to stand in line and be slaughtered. That was the etiquette of 1700's war.

I loathe the idea of Americans dying and loathe the idea of Iraqi casualties as well. But invaders are rarely seen as the righteous.

Michael Robinson

Sandy

I guess this is just the latest example of Second Timothy 3:1-7, the last verse of which is: "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." Ah, the foolish consistency!


No.2

Protect Free Speech

First of all, just to lay down my biases, I am a Gulf War veteran who supports the current action in Iraq. I believe if we do not take action now against Saddam Hussein, we will regret it later.


Recently, filmmaker Michael Moore made some comments at the Academy Awards that could most delicately be described as "unfortunate." Even liberals have called his comments "boorish." However, when someone says, "They should drop him in the conflict and make him one of OUR human shields," it concerns me greatly. If we discourage free speech through intimidation or belligerence, we are going down the wrong path. The speech most important to protect is that which is unpopular or controversial.

In truth, our freedom is even more important to defend than our lives. We "on the home front" have a duty to defend that freedom by supporting the principles of free speech � even when it turns our stomachs.

James Knowlton

Provo

If I though Michael Moore was being intimidated, I might agree. But sometimes people need a little belligerence to express their feelings. Michael Moore is a repulsive creep. Those young men and women fighting in Iraq ARE our human shields. They just have more sense than to go over there without protection. The thought of Michael Moore being drafted, however, doesn't appeal to me. He couldn't cut it, and I wouldn't trust him with a gun.


No. 3

(Introduction: Brigham Young University is a private university owned and run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have two degrees from there. When you're accepted as a student, you sign an agreement that you'll follow the church's standards, which are pretty strict by modern standards. But when I was there in the 60s and 70s there were always students who tried to claim that the code they had agreed to uphold was somehow a violation of their rights. The problem is that it is a legal contract. If you don't keep your end, you're not entitled to remain at the university. This kid violated the code by committing a federal misdemeanor. Now he may be expelled, which has been played up in the local media as a free speech case. Hence this editorial, with which I agree. He's lucky he's not my son.)

BYU case not about free speech

Deseret News editorial

We don't know whether BYU administrators will expel Caleb Proulx, the student who was arrested earlier this week for blocking the entrance to a federal building as part of an anti-war demonstration. Officials at BYU don't even know that yet. The case is under review.

But regardless of their eventual decision, BYU administrators ought not let the people who would turn this into a free speech issue influence the decision.

Some have suggested that a decision to expel Proulx would be carried worldwide by media outlets as a blow against the First Amendment at the private, religiously owned university � a First Amendment that also guarantees the religious freedom that allows the university to exist. If so, it will be because of grossly inaccurate reporting.

BYU has allowed free speech when it comes to discussions and debates about the war in Iraq. Proulx, who never made any secret about his anti-war stance, created silk-screened armbands expressing his views. He and several other students wore them around campus without any reaction from school officials. Classes and official forums have aired both sides of the war issue. Earlier this month, this newspaper quoted Proulx as saying, "I do believe BYU's administration wants to have discussions on the war. There's no restriction on free speech."

But when he blocked the entrance to the federal building, he took his protest to a different level. BYU's honor code requires obedience to laws. Proulx signed the code voluntarily. He understands what it means and, at least at one time, felt it was important enough to agree to follow for four years.

Some have called this form a civil disobedience a time-honored tradition in America. Perhaps it is. But like all acts, it carries consequences. Proulx understood this. He has said he knew he would be arrested, and he had weighed the consequences � on his schooling and his future employment prospects � carefully. In the end, he felt his cause was more important than those things. So be it.

BYU has an impressive record of enforcing its honor code in spite of how it might affect athletic teams or outside opinions. It also has a much less known record of showing compassion and forgiveness to students who make mistakes, decisions that rarely get any publicity.


This case could go either way. But its outcome should be seen only one way � as a private university's enforcement of an honor code.

My brother noted that he never noticed any engineering majors at anti-war rallies. They were too busy studying.