Editor,
In response to Rebekah Casey's letter in Monday's Daily Lobo: Irony of ironies, President Bush didn't have a plurality when he was initially elected to office.
I'll grant you he won the popular vote in the last election, but let's also be fair about one thing - the conflict in Iraq wasn't the only issue for which people were casting their ballots.
The key issue for voters in the last presidential election was family values, not freedom. Casey should amend her generalization of the majority of Americans accordingly.
If she wants to be even-handed - of which I have no proof - she should note that the majority of freedom-loving Americans chose Bush to deny homosexuals the right to marry.
The majority of freedom-loving Americans chose Bush to usurp states' rights by imposing federal regulations on education.
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The majority of freedom-loving Americans chose Bush to appoint a chief justice whose judicial beliefs are just as much a mystery now as when his career began 30 years ago.
The majority of freedom-loving Americans chose Bush to support legislation to completely contradict 200 years of constitutional interpretation and the precedent for the right to privacy.
The majority of Americans sure do love their freedom - so much they're giving heaps of it back to the federal government in lieu of taxes.
As James Madison said, "Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."
Claiming we brought democracy to the Middle East is no justification for invasion. War is no substitute for foreign policy - I'm sorry you're under the impression it is. War to protect the varied interests and security of a nation is just. Can you truly say it's just to fight in foreign lands because we feel threatened? Should we dissolve the United Nations and shelve our diplomacy since we have a mighty standing army we can deploy anywhere should we feel threatened?
Defending our liberties is noble; imperialism is not. If we had liberated the people in Iraq, don't you believe there would be less resistance? If Iraqis valued their right to vote and their new liberties more than their lives, don't you believe more of them would vote? Don't you believe perhaps they would have risen against their government?
I understand your support of the conflict in Iraq - unfortunately, I'm a freedom-loving American who loves my freedom more than revenge for the sake of revenge, not that either Iraq or Afghanistan ever invaded us. I don't believe my nation's security hinges on annihilating competition or potential threats, nor do I believe it hinges on restricting my liberties, which, as Casey points out, the majority of Americans love.
I ask you to consider what Benjamin Franklin had to say about balancing our security with our liberty: "Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Good thing the Patriot Act was just made permanent. Now Casey, the majority of freedom-loving Americans and the rest of America can have neither.
Jared Thormahlen
UNM student
