Debate is one of the things that make this country great. When the Founding Fathers forged the Constitution, they encouraged all Americans to think and speak freely. The First Amendment to the Constitution includes the right to dissent, giving us even more freedom.
But, as TownHall.com columnist Bill O’Reilly said, ‘the Founders had a common ground in that they believed in the concept of a free United States and that individual rights were the key to that freedom. Theirs was a labor of love, and they were all proud to be called Americans.’
Protesting against America is not ‘very pro-American,’ as Alan Colmes recently called it.
Opposing a policy being carried out in a free country is proper; there is nothing wrong with protesting during the war. Protests did, some believe, help end the Vietnam War.
But there is a difference between protesting our country’s policies and aiding the enemy. ‘Anti-war protesters are not exhibiting their patriotism when they dissent; they are exercising their freedoms and there’s a big difference,’ said writer David Limbaugh.
What I don’t like is the mindless anti-American, hate-Bush, hate-America, we’re-all-bad kind of nonsense such as always emerges in crowds at times like these (particularly crowds full of leftists, whose default mode seems to always be protesting against us). Running around calling Bush a modern-day Hitler and trashing the United States as an evil nation are offensive. In fact, that kind of protest tends to affront people who might otherwise join a protest.
People who disrupt traffic or otherwise interfere directly with our lives have stepped beyond protected speech and threaten the functioning of our society, especially when terrorists could strike here at home.
According to columnist Monica Charen, Saddam Hussein watches the marches in Western capitals with satisfaction. Newsweek reports that he told an Egyptian newspaper: ‘Time is working for us. We have to buy some more time, and the American-British coalition will disintegrate because of internal reasons and because of the pressure of public opinion in the American and British street.’
Many do not want to remove Saddam by force. But if force is not used, he stays. More Iraqis are tortured and killed, and Saddam keeps his weapons in play.
‘The anti-war protesters are making an end to the war much more difficult,’ said University of Haifa Professor Amatzia Baram in an interview with TownHall.com. ‘[They] are helping Saddam Hussein a great deal. His elite troops will not surrender [if they think there is] an end to the war [and] they can continue to rule, keep their privileges and pillage. These demonstrators are lengthening the war … lengthening the suffering of the people,’ he said.
Also, many protesters claim to support the troops but not the war. They are trying to have it both ways. Giving comfort to the enemy does not help our troops. The best way to ensure that the troops are supported is to speed the war to a successful conclusion.
Julia Bainbridge, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is an assistant city editor of The Daily Free Press.
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