Letters to the Editor - March 8

, Mar 7, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (9 Reader comments)

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Centennial counselor is a hero for speaking out

Mr. Siegel’s guest column (Outlook, Feb. 27) is nothing less than true honor, he is right to stand up for the children in his charge. That is his job! To question his school’s policy is what a good citizen does. Too often we find the policy is wrong or executed improperly to begin with.

These public school ‘Politico Politburo’ do not always act out of compassion and concern for their students as Mr. Siegel has. Seems to me the principal of Centennial is more concerned about protecting his own derrière than his students’ safety.

Through history, great civilizations have always protected their children. Now it seems, it is all the fashion to sell them to the highest bidder.

Caring parents want to know? Why has the Bush administration’s “no child left behind” law been allowed to station military recruiters in our high schools to target and deceive our children into joining a most obscene and immoral slaughter circus? Over a million, three thousand served and still counting.

Military recruiters deceived me in 1968 as they do youngsters today. One need only Google “military recruiters disciplined” to find page after page of lies and deception promulgated by these merchants of death.

As for their honor, the GAO reports more than 1,000 cases of rape and sexual misconduct of young teenage women and presumably young men as well, this while trying to enlist to serve their country at the hands of their recruiters.

Don’t believe me? Look it up!

I am not saying all recruiters are rapists or sexual predators, but evidently, a significant number are.

What exactly is the vetting process for these recruiters? Do you want people with this record handling your children?

Perhaps we should remember Jared Gunther, the young autistic teen recruited into the army in 2006.

Another thing that bothers me is the small percentage of recruiters who have ever seen combat firsthand. Shouldn’t they have the benefit of the experience before they tout battle stories to prospective recruits?

My recommendation to those who think military recruiters are cool with kids and look like Sonny Jim on the label of a jam jar, is to talk to the mothers and fathers of the Gold Star Families, talk to Ms. Sheehan about the loss of her son, Casey, who was told he wouldn’t have to kill. Talk to the Iraq vets against the war. Talk to the vets involved in Abu Ghraib. Then get back to me about how great it is to sell our children to these charlatan Shanghai experts.

WILLIAM E. DODDS

Gresham

Anti-meat zealots organized campaign

The recent beef recall has sent self-righteous animal rights activists into a feeding frenzy, and some of them have been using phony letter-writing campaigns to voice their outrage. The same exact letter submitted by Pete Flutie (“Government doesn’t do enough to inspect beef” in the Feb. 23 edition of The Outlook) also appeared, word-for-word, in more than four dozen other U.S. newspapers this month. In each case, a different “author” signed it.

This is not a coincidence. It’s an organized campaign.

While Americans are understandably outraged at the behavior of a few meatpacking employees, anti-meat zealots are trying to parlay that into a national hatred for the entire animal-agriculture food chain. That’s understandable, since they believe we should be limited to crunching carrots and slurping soymilk. But it’s not honest.

If the save-the-cows crowd has to resort to form letters to make a point, they don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Especially since the U.S. Department of Agriculture has made it clear that this whole episode didn’t pose a food-safety risk to anyone’s health. Despite the indefensible actions of two or three people, Americans won’t likely lose their taste for meat. Especially when they understand how deceptive some vegetarians can be.

David Martosko

research director,

Center for Consumer Freedom

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