Editor,
I am so tired of reading about the flag incident from last month. We all know that Peter Lynch should not have torn the Mexican flag. An article in Thursday's Daily Lobo quotes him as saying that. So, let's move on.
As far as charging him with a hate crime, I find the idea ridiculous. If Lynch posted racist comments on his MySpace Web page, so what? It's his. He can write whatever he wants there. He can have any opinion he wants and post it there. MySpace isn't going to stop him. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, no matter how misinformed or uneducated it is, and if Lynch feels that way, then that is his right. If he does feel that way, I doubt he is the only person on campus who does.
The issue here should be that El Centro de la Raza flew a Mexican flag without a U.S. flag nearby. If we are going to prosecute Lynch for hate crimes, then I say we also prosecute El Centro for disobeying U.S. law.
I guess I fail to see how tearing a flag is a hate crime. People burn the U.S. flag, and no one does anything about it, because we are all so concerned about our freedom of speech and expression. Again, since the flag did not belong to Lynch, he should not have torn it. So maybe next time, he can buy his own flag and do whatever he wants with it.
Now let's move on to topics of real importance.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Jessica Stanton
UNM student
