Anti-Bushies take anger out on the wrong target --so much for free speech!

Letter to the editor-Seattle Times ^

[against_kerry]

Anti-Bushies take anger out on the wrong target

I'm not sure how many readers read or heard about the haranguing of Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Due at Seattle Central Community College during the Thursday protests of President Bush's second inauguration. Due was badly harassed by a large crowd that destroyed military literature and eventually drove the man off while under campus security protection.

It is one of the great, colossal mistakes of the so-called peace movement that they badger and mistreat recruiters and other people whose job it is to keep the ranks filled. Speaking as a reservist who was brought into the fold by men like Due, I am flummoxed that any group claiming to be smart about international politics can be so stupid as to attack the troops because of the decisions being made in Washington, D.C.

Save your ire and your vitriol for the politicians.

Brad R. Torgersen Tacoma

[against_kerry]

I guess free speech only goes one way!

[The Right Stuff]

It usually does, on the Left..

[MEG33]

Of course!..There is free speech on campus for pro Palestinians, anti war protestors and socialists but God help a conservative club or a (gasp)..military recruiter

[California Patriot]

It was certainly wrong of the Left to do this, but "a mistake"? It seems to me that this sort of behavior achieves its aim -- to weaken our military by reducing its campus recruitment. If someone can tell me that it ADDS to campus recruitment, fine. But let's distinguish between what's wrong and what's counterproductive. Sadly, the two don't always coincide.

[dead]

They hate recruiters.

If military recruiters are successful, they will prevent the draft that liberals desperately want Bush to enact so that they can show how desperately against it they are.

Without the draft, the liberals will never be able to show how horrific the draft is and the inability to wail against the horror of draft is the only thing that is more horrific than the draft itself.

It's all very Hellerish.

[eastsider]

They supported the troops before they didn't support them ...

[West Coast Conservative]

Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Due, right, a U.S. Army recruiter, is surrounded by protesters at Seattle Central Community College, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, in Seattle. After about a 10-minute standoff during which protesters tore up U.S Army literature, the protesters were successful in getting Due and another recruiter to leave their table under escort by campus security officers. Several hundred students walked out of classes at several Seattle colleges and universities to protest the inauguration of President Bush. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

[AZ_Cowboy]

It doesn't even go one way with the leftists. They eat plenty of their own as well, apparently. Witness Mr. Summers at Harvard and the assault on Christopher Hitchens.

[jveritas]

The Left Dictionary define tolerance as accepting all the ideas that agree with you, and kill all the people who disagree with you so only people who agree with you exist.

[KC_Conspirator]

These people hate America and should be arrested immediately.

[Jeff Head]

claiming to be smart about international politics

I saw no such claim...and if there was, then it was a lie.

Those kids were an ignorant, whining mob who were not worthy to tie that staff Sgt's boot laces. The irony is, that that very sgt would risk his life for the right those kids have to voice their free speech, while the people those kids want to get out from under the heel of our military, would tie them up and slaughter those very kids on film, cutting their heads off, because of thier inbred hatred for everything those kids represent.

It would be good therapy for those spoiled, ignorant children to spend about 4 weeks in the back country in India, Red China, Iraq, or anywhere else where thier creature comforts and freedom are denied. Most would come home singing a different toon.

God bless that staff sgt for his composure. Make no mistake...those kids crossed the line from free speech to verbal assault and intimidation, driving a law abding citizen from his work. They should have been arrested and the fact that they weren't says a lot about the school administration IMHO.

(/rant)

[jveritas]

With the Sergent I.Q not added, the cumulative I.Q of all the other people in the picture is less than 80, and I am being very generous.

[YOUGOTIT]

These are the same Nazi democrats who spit on the troops and put bombs in ROTC buildings during the 1906's and 1970's. They were not brought to justice then and you can be sure that the left-wing supporters of terrorism will not do anything to them now.

[KiloLima]

So, were the students expelled?

[wrathof59]

Bingo, too many posters feel that it's the left who will ultimately fail by their boorish, intolerable behavior, but I've witnessed exactly the opposite.

This behavior has guarenteed, concrete and immediate results.

Babrbara boxer's behavior last week has immediate results.

The right and conservatives always cower and run away with their tail between their legs. Why isn't somebody in the House going to bring this behavior on the floor of US House and threaten cutting off all Federal funding to the State of washington unless the campuses are secure for our Armed Forces Recruiter?

RINOs are weak, spineless quivering POSs who were handed the election and now have NO CLUE ON HOW TO GOVERN WITH IT!

These idiots are trying to play fair when everyone else is fighting as dirty as they possibly can.

[Billthedrill]

This is absolutely no different from what transpired on campus during the Vietnam war except that during the latter it was worse. Now we have historical revisionists attempting to claim that this sort of thing never happened during Vietnam, that the protestors backed the troops and that most of the troops backed the protestors.

Thirty years from now some of the people in that picture will look you in the eye and proclaim it an urban legend, that it never happened. But we remember, and it's the sort of thing that tanked Kerry.

[bigfootbob]

Of course not, they probably received extra credit. Seattle Central Community College is a clone of Evergreen State or what we now call Rachel Corrie U. The state should close these two schools down, or sell it to Hillsdale College.

[patriciamary]

The government should take away there student loans immediately!

[KiloLima]

. . .cutting off all Federal funding to the State of washington unless the campuses are secure for our Armed Forces Recruiter?

Also, where were campus administrators? They look the other way when "demonstrators" invade?

[NorCalRepub]

too bad you can't be arrested for stupidity, illogical thinking, narrow minded intolerance, radical ideologies, violence in the name of peace and not washing your clothes for a week........