March 11, 2003
GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY:
Antiwar protesters trash 9/11 memorial: American flags burned and slashed (Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell, March 10, 2003, The Whittier Daily News)Antiwar protesters burned and ripped up flags, flowers and patriotic signs at a Sept. 11 memorial that residents erected on a fence along Whittier Boulevard days after the terrorist attacks in 2001 and have maintained ever since.However, although officers witnessed the vandalism Saturday afternoon, police did not arrest three people seen damaging the display because they were "exercising the same freedom of speech that the people who put up the flags were,' La Habra Police Capt. John Rees said Monday. [...]
Tracey Chandler, a Whittier mother of four who has maintained the spontaneous memorial since it was created by other area residents soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said she was shocked by the destruction.
"They trashed 87 flags, ripped 11 memorial tiles made by myself and my children out of the ground and glued the Bob Dylan song to a sign that said, 'America, land of the brave, home of the free,' ' she said.
The Bob Dylan song she referred to is "With God on Our Side,' an antiwar anthem of the 1960s.
Which puts us in mind of Amos (5:21-24):
I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies.Posted by Orrin Judd at March 11, 2003 2:51 PM
Yea, though ye offer me burnt-offerings and your meal-offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.
Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs; and let Me not hear the melody of thy psalteries.
But let justice well up as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
It's not just the vileness of destroying a memorial. Not only the wanton violence that leads some people to attack and vandalise someone else's property. Not even that the display attacked included children's heartfelt work. This is all bad anough.
But what makes this story so much worse is the attitude articulated by the policeman. Who is "La Habra Police Capt. John Rees"? What function does he serve? Do the La Habra police department ignore violence against private cars, or businesses, if the owner is not around to make a formal complaint? Where is La Habra anyway?
This story, alongside the humilation of Hamid Karzai at the Senate, disgusts me.
Rees should lose his job. I'm astonished.
Alastair:
Thus have the civil libertarians and their pliant friends on the bench cowed people into not defending what is right.
The Left again demonstrates its respect for others and its idea of manners. Where are the hard hats when you need them?
Posted by: Thomas J. Jackson at March 12, 2003 12:11 AMThis wasn't really done by antiwar protesters. A group of pro-war people in La Habra got together and staged this thing with the complicity of the police.
Posted by: Ryan at March 12, 2003 7:40 AMRyan:
Did they land in black helicopters?