God Bless...America?

Robert Sullivan, guest writer

Professor Ward Churchill and staff writer Giovanni Rosendo simply don’t get it.  I am speaking from a pro-capitalist perspective, and I did vote for the president in the last election.  Yet my arguments against Mr. Churchill simply are not reduced to the fact that he is an, “egotistical hippie that just wants attention.

”  Freedom of speech allows me to opine to an editorial I disagree with.  It allows Ms. Rosendo to write an article expressing her views, and it allows Professor Churchill to express his ideals, however unpopular.  However, the First Amendment does not allow a person to garner a $90,000 a year salary from a subsidized state university and then spout off his own personal ideology in a pseudo-intellectual style that is above reproach. 

This man’s opinions are not absolute.  They are beliefs only.  When the professor bloviates to his class as if he is omnipotent is where I take offense.  I agree with Ms. Rosendo in that I do go to college, as most do, to garner a higher education.  Yet, I cannot see sitting in class for an hour during which a man tells his pupils how evil America and her citizens are can be considered learning by anyone’s standards. 

 If Mr. Churchill wants to stand on a street corner condemning capitalism at the top of his lungs, more power to him.  Just don’t make the residents of Colorado pay for it with their tax dollars.  Yet, what truly worries me through this whole ordeal is the principles that these people believe in.  They truly believe America was not attacked on Sep. 11.  Far from it, we were simply getting our comeuppance.  We have oppressed our citizens and those all over the globe for far too long, and finally stood up for themselves.  Those men and women who died were not church deacons. 

They were not givers of their time and money to charities.  They were not good siblings, or children, or parents to their own children.  They were not public servants in the line of fire, giving the ultimate sacrifice, their lives.  No, they were Nazi’s simply by association with this country and its economic system.  This national deprecating idea that we deserve to die, simply because we live in America, confuses and frightens me.  No, my mistake.  Those Americans who were rich deserve to die.  After all, Mr. Churchill did absolve the janitors and maids of the Twin Towers from culpability.  Perhaps the real issue here, a renewed attempt at class warfare, is being veiled behind the names of those who died one innocent September day.