posted on April 6, 2007 07:23:24 AM new
PROVO, Utah — The signs were louder than the voices.
Three weeks before a commencement speech by Vice President Dick Cheney, more than 200 protesters held a quiet rally Wednesday at Brigham Young University under strict rules set by the school, which is owned by the Mormon church.
Stay in the designated area. No shouting. No bullhorns. No baiting the Cheney supporters.
So the critics, mostly students, held signs that said: "America One Nation Under Surveillance," "Faithful Mormons Against Cheney" and "Corruption Is Not A Partisan Issue."
Cheney will be the commencement speaker April 26 at BYU, a conservative school owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The invitation from Mormon church officials has drawn criticism from some students and faculty who claim the school is showing a partisan stripe despite church insistence it has no allegiance to any political party.
Campus Democrats were granted space for a two-hour protest Wednesday. About 100 yards away, Cheney supporters in blue shirts passed out brownies and asked students to sign a letter thanking the vice president. They got 400 names in 40 minutes.
"He's not going to use it as a political forum," senior Bob Reese of Kaysville said of the commencement speech. "He's an example of success."
Campus security officers wearing business suits and earpieces watched both groups and confiscated signs that didn't meet the rules, including one that had pictures of Cheney, Mormon church President Gordon B. Hinckley and others.
"One of these things just doesn't belong," the sign said.
When the event was over, school officials confiscated all signs and told students they could pick them up off campus if they wanted them, Jenkins said.
Macrae McDermott, a sophomore from Bountiful, was among 150 people inside the anti-Cheney zone. She distributed leaflets as students passed.
"We're hoping people will step in and say, 'Maybe these people have a point,"' McDermott said. "I think that political dialogue is essential. I may go against the norm, but I have my convictions."
A retired English professor, Paul Thomas, was among the protesters. His sign read, "Cheney, Tutor To Our Worst President Ever."
"I'm here to support the students. ... It's not just Republican," Thomas said of BYU.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride declined to comment on the dueling campus gatherings.
"The vice president is looking forward to visiting Utah," she said from Washington.
They passed out leaflets that slammed Cheney's support for the Iraq war, the U.S. methods of prisoner interrogation and the vice president's ties to his former employer, Halliburton Co.
"These students have been very responsible," BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said. "This shows the civil dialogue that takes place on this campus."
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on April 6, 2007 01:34:50 PM new
""""These students have been very responsible," BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said. "This shows the civil dialogue that takes place on this campus.""""
Too bad DICK (Go F--- Yourself!) Cheney doesn't believe in civil dialogue
posted on April 6, 2007 02:38:42 PM new
Nope....he's the enemy of terrorists, the communists here in America who work to destroy her from WITHIN....and anyone who even THINKS they're going to hurt America/Americans.
Maybe you fall within one of those catagories of un-Americans who would LOVE nothing more than to be praying the quran 5 times a day.
MOST American's don't want that here. Not what we've EVER been about as a Nation....nor I pray to God ...will we EVER be.
That's why people who think like you do must NEVER be elected. They'd destroy America.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on April 6, 2007 02:40:12 PM new
Try and attempt to avoid the VULGARITIES .....you're sounding like LD now.
tsk tsk tsk
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on April 6, 2007 02:44:43 PM new
VULGARITIES ???
You mean like the following ????
classicrock000
posted on April 5, 2007 06:52:47 AM
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"Bush goes through the back door again "
bet that must have gotten ya all excited heh dad?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you dont want to hear the truth....dont ask the question.
Linda_K
posted on April 5, 2007 06:58:35 AM
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lol classic....I was thinking the same thing when I read his title.
He always makes references to 'back doors'.
==================
posted on April 6, 2007 02:48:08 PM new
No....that's the TRUTH of how LD posts ....often. Even WORSE sometimes.
Your vulgarity is UN-NECESSARY.....uncalled for...and only shows how low you too can go.
QUOTING YOU:
"DICK is the enemy.....just because you'd lick anything he has doesn't mean everyone should.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on Apr 6, 2007 02:50 PM ]
posted on April 6, 2007 02:57:53 PM new
you really are dense sybil.
Referring to the actions of anyone is NOT a vulgarity.
Otherwise no one could EVER mention the actions of others.
what a dim-wit you are among other things.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on April 6, 2007 03:10:16 PM new
You are not only confused about who America's enemies are...but also about the word 'vulgarities' and what it means.
posted on April 6, 2007 03:18:21 PM new
Read YOUR post, linduh, it was vulgar.
"""classicrock000
posted on April 5, 2007 06:52:47 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Bush goes through the back door again "
bet that must have gotten ya all excited heh dad?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you dont want to hear the truth....dont ask the question.
Linda_K
posted on April 5, 2007 06:58:35 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
lol classic....I was thinking the same thing when I read his title.
He always makes references to 'back doors'."""
You're the confused one...
posted on April 6, 2007 03:03:23 PM edit
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"""Referring to the actions of anyone is NOT a vulgarity.""
So, you now say I wasn't being vulgar...can't you make up that uneducated mind ?
YOU said, ""I was thinking the same thing when I read his title.""
posted on April 6, 2007 03:20:07 PM new
So was it "necessary" or "unnecessary" vulgarity for DICK Cheney to tell a Senator on the floor of the Senate to "Go F--- yourself" ??????
posted on April 6, 2007 03:31:42 PM new
And I'm talking , and proving, that you made a vulgar post about Logan.
And here is what YOU posted:
Linda_K
posted on April 6, 2007 02:57:53 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
you really are dense sybil.
Referring to the actions of anyone is NOT a vulgarity."""
There is proof from your own post that you don't think what I said was a vulgarity....
hey , why don't ya email nathan again and ask him (snicker!)
posted on April 6, 2007 03:50:27 PM new
I think it is a sad thing that maybe a lot of voters don't see the present administration as protectors of America and her values.
God knows the liberals have let our values slip away....and now it's gotten so bad they're calling for our DEFEAT in Iraq.
Someday I truly believe American's will recorgnize that this President and his VP have done the correct thing. The best they could have done in their service to our Nation.
But that probably won't come soon enough I'm afraid.
===============
Beyond Iraq
By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, April 5, 2007
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com
The threat from radical Islamic terrorists will not vanish when President Bush leaves office, or if funds for the Iraq war are cut off in 2008.
A frequent charge is that we are bringing terrorists to Iraq. That is true in the sense that war always brings the enemy out to the battlefield. But it's also false, since it ignores why killers like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (the late al-Qaida chief in Iraq), Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas (Palestinian terrorists of the 1980s), and Abdul Rahman Yasin (involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) were already in Saddam's Iraq when we arrived.
Moreover, the unpopular war in Iraq did not create radical Islamists and their madrassas throughout the Middle East that today brainwash young radicals and pressure the region's monarchies, theocracies and autocracies to provide money for training and weaponry. All that radicalism had been going on for decades â€" as we saw during the quarter-century of terrorism that led up to 9/11.
And rioting, assassination and death threats over artistic expression in Europe have nothing to do with Iraq.
Right now, most al-Qaida terrorists are being trained and equipped in the Pakistani wild lands of Waziristan to help the Taliban reclaim Afghanistan and spread jihad worldwide.
These killers pay no attention to the fact that our efforts in Afghanistan are widely multilateral.
They don't care that our presence there is sanctioned by NATO, or involves the United Nations, or only came as a reaction to 9/11.
These radical Islamists gain strength not because we "took our eye off Afghanistan" by being in Iraq, but because Pakistan's strongman, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, can't or won't do anything about al-Qaida's bases in his country. And neither Bush nor Nancy Pelosi quite knows how to pressure such an unpredictable nuclear military dictatorship.
The Iraq war has certainly sharpened our relationship with Iran, but, of course, it's also not the cause of our tensions with Tehran.
For decades, the Iranian government has subsidized Hezbollah, which during the 1980s and 1990s murdered Americans from Saudi Arabia to Beirut. It was not the current Iranian lunatic president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but an earlier more "moderate" president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who remarked, in 2001, that "one bomb is enough to destroy all Israel."
So Iraq is only one recent theater, albeit a controversial one, in an ongoing global struggle.
This larger conflict arose not from the Iraqi invasion of 2003, but from earlier radical Muslim rage at the modern globalized world, the profits and dislocations from Middle East oil, and Islamic terrorism that ranges worldwide from Afghanistan to Thailand.
Should a peace candidate win the American presidency in 2008, prompting the U.S. to pull out of Iraq before the democracy there is stabilized, in the short term we will save lives and money. But as the larger war continues after we withdraw, jihadists will still flock to the Sunni Triangle. Hamas and Hezbollah will still rocket Israel. Syria will still kill Lebanese reformers. Iran will still try to cheat its way to a nuclear bomb. Ayman al- Zawahiri will still broadcast his al-Qaida threats from safety in nuclear Pakistan. The oil-rich, illegitimate Gulf sheikdoms will still make secret concessions and bribe increasingly confident terrorists to leave them alone. And jihadists will still try to sneak into the United States to kill us.
Critics of the present war can make the tactical argument that it is wiser to fight al-Qaida in Pakistan than in Iraq. Or that money spent in the frontline Iraqi offensive theater would be better invested on defense and security at home. Or that the human cost is simply too great and thus we should instead make diplomatic concessions to radical Islamists in lieu of military confrontation.
But, again, those are operational alternatives found in every war â€" as familiar as the old controversies over the French defensive Maginot Line of the 1930s or the American decision to defeat Germany first, Japan second.
In the case of staying on in Iraq, at least, our long-term plan is to go on the offensive to confront radical Islamic terrorists on their own turf, and try to foster a democratic alternative to theocracy or autocracy.
That may be felt by the American public to be too expensive or too naive, but it is a direct strategy aimed at an enemy who seeks to terrorize the West and plans on being around well after 2008.
Depending on how we leave Iraq, this global war against radical Islamic terrorism will either wax or wane. But it will hardly end.
==========
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on April 6, 2007 03:52:31 PM new
Open Letter to President Bush from Saint Vincent College Friends, Students, and Alumnipetition text signatures email friends show support
The petition
Dear President Bush:
Political motives aside, and with the highest respect for the Office of the President of the United States, we the undersigned friends, students, and alumni of Saint Vincent College respectfully protest your acceptance of the College's invitation to speak at commencement on May 11th.
Since it was founded in 1846, Saint Vincent College has strived to embody the ideals of the Catholic faith and the fifteen-hundred-year heritage of Benedictine education. The College's mission is firmly rooted in "the love of values inherent in the liberal approach to life and learning." We believe your administration's disregard of opposing viewpoints has deeply divided the nation and flies in the face of this approach.
Your poor stewardship of the environment, policies that favor the wealthy while ignoring the needs of the poor and the sick, and reckless squandering of the lives of our troops by clinging to failed tactics in an ill-conceived, unjustified war are at odds with our values. Values that—rather than being unique to Catholicism—are universal.
Archabbot Nowicki, the College's chancellor, believes that your address would help to "burnish our reputation as one of the finest liberal arts schools in the country," but we believe that linking the school to your administration would irreparably tarnish Saint Vincent.
The College's mission is to provide men and women with a quality education "to enable them to integrate their professional aims with the broader purposes of human life." Your purposes are not our purposes, and your beliefs do not reflect the values and heritage of our cherished institution.
If you want to sign this letter go here.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/svc/
posted on April 7, 2007 06:48:09 PM newIt's only vulgar if your mind goes there.
There was nothing vulgar that was said in the title of that post.
Linda's mind is always in the gutter.
And just for the record.......This President didn't 'go in any back door'.He used his LEGAL executive powers. Given to him by our constitution.
He used his legal executive powers to appoint someone ONLY AFTER THE SENATE FAILED TO NOMINATE HIM. In other words he went against what the Senate wanted. In other words Bush went to Plan B in order to get his way since he could not get it through normal channels. In other words he went through the back door.
kiara....you're confused again. Just supporting the VULGARITY of mingo/crow now?Just like you have done in the past by defending LD's vile/vulgar statements.
Just like you have defended the vulgarity of twinkle toes, pie in the face, squiddly diddly and rocks for brains when they have made anti-gay remarks to me.
This is just another one of Crybaby_K's little rants when she cant play with the big boys. She can dish out all the hate and venom but when it is directed her way she gets offended and has to cry to Vendio.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
