As printed January 30, 2008, in the Homer Index:

“All I wanted to do this week was talk about college football.”  That was the beginning of the article written by Pete Cunningham in last week’s paper.  His article instead goes on to attack the Presidential candidate Ron Paul.  My suggestion is he should stick to the hard hitting issues surrounding college football.  His grasp of the details on other subjects is, at best, ignorant. 

Pete attacks Ron Paul as a bigot.  Let us examine his record.  He is a veteran of the United States Air Force, he has delivered over 4000 babies as a doctor, and he has served for almost 20 years in Congress as a representative from Texas.  He supports allowing Americans to keep more of their own money, eliminating the IRS, ending private control of American monetary policy by ending the federal reserve, returning the United States to a country focused on the principles found in the constitution, and receives the support of current and former military more than any other candidate. 

To Pete this speaks of bigotry? 

Pete doesn’t like the idea of restricting foreigners from terrorist nations from going to school here in the United States. 

Our openness to foreigners from nations that support terror led to the attacks on 9-11.  Pete doesn’t want to discriminate against the possibility someone from a country that hates us might want to kill us.

Well Pete, get up off your butt and enlist.  Go to Iraq, like I did, and see those wonderful people you want to live next to you.  Watch a car bomb kill fellow soldiers while you sit helplessly taking the American flag off the antenna of your HUMMVE because you are a “liberator” not an “occupier.” 

For that matter you personally invite those foreigners from countries that preach hate against America into your home, let them sleep under your roof, risk the safety of your family and then write about bigotry. 

Until you do all that and experience the hate personally, stick to college football.   That is something you can screw up entirely without leading to the death of innocent Americans.

-Tom Lowe

United States Army, Retired

Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran

Response:

Tom,

Thank you for your comments and your service.

In response to your comments:

I do believe Ron Paul's statements are extremely racist and his stance toward student visas is bigotry. I also do not agree with his other positions of which you spoke, but I'd rather stick to the statements of which my column was based.

I have not served our country nor would I ever claim a comprehensive understanding of the sacrifice involved. I did, however, go to college where I had the honor and privilege of studying under professors from Israel and Serbia. I also benefited from a very diverse student body which included many students from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Pakistan, etc. Many of them are now in grad school, others studying to be doctors, businessmen, diplomats, etc. I stand by my statement that to deny scholars from these countries to study because of the actions of some maniacs would be an injustice, and bigoted discrimination. These friends and colleagues of mine are now contributing to society, and some are helping the down-trodden nations from which they came. How would the world benefit from them being denied a student-visa?

What you experienced, Tom, is unimaginable to me. To see soldiers pay the ultimate price so that we all can be safe is remarkable. But I would hope that your friends and our countrymen died for a world where the innocent can be free.

In your time in Iraq, I'm sure that you encountered innocent civilians who wanted - like you and me - to be free, and wished no ill will upon anyone. What if one of those innocent people had a way out of the hell from which they were so unfortunate to be born into? What if they were smart enough to be accepted into a college in the US where they could gain knowledge and even use their experience to help their people? If we close the student visa avenue completely, that possibility becomes non-existent, and could create hate in the individuals who are being denied.

Yes, the 9-11 maniacs exploited this avenue in the worse imaginable way, but please don't forget that most do not.

I do not invite those who preach hate to come here, but have slept under the same roof as people from countries where such people hail. Labeling those people as preachers of hate or terrorists because they shared a nationality with a select amount of maniacs would have been "at best, ignorant."

-PC