Dear Editor
This is in response to your article titled “Bush’s Openness Connects with Religious Youth.”
Congratulations, this has officially offended every non-Christian, non-republican and non-heterosexual on this campus.
I think it would be fair to say, that this constitutes at least half of the students and faculty at this university.
You see, here in America, we have this thing known as separation of church and state. The article and Bush’s behavior in office are an affront to the constitution. Religion should have no bearing on politics.
A person can be moral and good without being Christian, and Christians have been known to kill people in the name of God.
There is a quote in the article that says, “It comforts me to know that President Bush is a man who walks with the Lord.”
Well, it scares me to death.
This man is dangerous to anyone who is a minority in anyway, including women and homosexuals, largely because of his religious views.
Because of his “morality,” he is stripping away the rights of women and denying them to homosexuals all together.
People who are not white, Christian or republican men are still people, too and deserve to be treated as such.
I personally do not enjoy being told what I can and can’t do by a religion and political party that I choose not to affiliate with.
Kate McKinnon
Dear Editor,
This is not an opinion about two movies, but a simple fact about how each has been accepted by society and proves to be another example of the way history repeats itself.
All Quiet on the Western Front was the first anti-war movie, which was released in 1930 and showed a whole other view of the war – a crude and disturbing, yet truthful, picture of what those soldiers were really facing during WWI.
Causing uproar during the time of its release, it presented truthful things – truth for one particular soldier. Maybe not all would agree that war was as bad as All Quiet on the Western Front made it out to be, but that movie presented truth for one individual.
Young men preparing to enlist might hesitate after watching this movie, but at least those soldiers would know the truth about what they’re getting into rather than facing the shock of unexpected horror.
The truth must be faced to be conquered, is that not right?
The Passion of the Christ creates a similar situation.
Mel Gibson presents the story of Jesus Christ and his death. The movie was not intended to be anti-Semitic but instead to present what the Gospels told of the death of Christ from Mel Gibson’s view.
What is cool to me is how both movies present a truth (a truth to those producers) to a society that may or may not find them truths also.
Still we’re ready to throw them out there to be thought about by other men, despite the controversy they bring.
Did both producers of All Quiet on the Western Front and The Passion of the Christ not wish to make people consider something that they themselves deem as truth?
The movies captivate audiences because they do portray a clear message. All Quiet on the Western Front says the war is crude. The Passion of the Christ says Jesus, the Christ, suffered and was put to death, claiming to be the Son of God.
Viewers react because in both instances, they must decide if they agree with what has been shown as right or wrong.
Few movies do that today. Many may think it better just to smooth over the issue and let people willingly approach it instead of throwing big issues like these in their faces in order to confront them.
Is truth not avoided much of the time in today’s society?
I say yes after looking at how the people of the 1930s reacted to its controversial war movie and then how people today react to the release of The Passion of the Christ.
Katie Beth Criswell

Dear Editor,
We are writing in response to Seth Bartee’s article “Terrorism still runs rampant around world forcing peace-lovers out of office.”
Bartee tries in his article to paint Great Britain and the United States as the only nations in the world who are fighting the so-called “War on Terror.” He tries to say that George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are the only world leaders concerned with terrorism.
This is foolishness.
There is not a country in the world, even in the Middle East, which has inhabitants that welcome terrorism.
Now, there are factions in these countries which thrive on producing terror throughout the world, but no peoples in any country want terrorism to come to them.
Bartee says the the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warns U.S. civilians before a terrorist attack takes place.
There is no telling the number of times that ridiculous scale has changed and nothing has happened.
The only thing that scale is good for is keeping americans afraid.
As long as Americans stay afraid, then George W. Bush’s chances for re-election in November are better.
Bartee also says that a divided country is what terrorists look for when they are planning an attack. He cites the recent train bombings in Spain as an example of this.
If this were true, then the United States would be getting many more attacks than we are because George W. Bush has the country more polarized than it has been in recent memory.
If Mr. Bartee wants to discuss terrorism, then let’s do so.
Let’s discuss how the Bush administration has used the guise of terrorism to keep the American public petrified.
Let’s discuss how the War in Iraq has allowed terrorism to flourish in a country where it previously did not.
Let’s talk about how George W. Bush swore that Iraq was partners with al-Qaeda and that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and how neither “fact” has turned out to be true.
This administration has done little else but lie and deceive about the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
Bartee should remember this before he tries to portray this president as the leader of the world’s anti-terrorists.
Dean Burress & ETSU student Democrats

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