Legion Declares War on Protestors

The American Legion isn't fond of "disloyalty".

The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group's national commander called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war, even though they are protected by the Bill of Rights.

"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu...

...
In his speech, Cadmus declared: "It would be tragic if the freedoms our veterans fought so valiantly to protect would be used against their successors today as they battle terrorists bent on our destruction.”

He explained, "No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies." This might suggest to some, however, that American freedoms are worth dying for but not exercising.

Ah, there's nothing like the whiff of "wrongthink will be punished" you get off stories like that. We aren't allowed to tell people what's going on, because the possibility of terrorists hearing it.

It's disturbing that they'd argue this, because they seem to value the ignorance of the enemy (who would certainly know anyway) over the knowledge of the people themselves. Is the ability of the people to understand and decide on their representatives based on that knowledge so unimportant?

(Protest is, after all, aimed at the people.)

I don't know what rights this Cadmus guy was fighting for, but it certainly wasn't that of protest.

What's truly unfortunate, though, is how many self-proclaimed conservatives and patriots are missing a key part of American democracy: the man is not the office. He's a president, not Caesar.