As a close, personal friend of Andrea Laidman's ("You gotta fight for your right," Sept. 3), I can confirm Tom Martin's accusations ("Keep fighting the ordinance," Sept. 4) that she is a terrorist and a misguided youth are entirely true. Not only is she a political science and peace studies major, like Osama bin Laden (terrorist), Jane Fonda (misguided youth) and Hugo Chavez (apparently a combination of the two), but she is the co-founder of a group called Notre Dame Students Against State Killing (ND-ASK), an organization that is attempting to remove the American death penalty in favor of a more vigilante-like system of killing people for the atrocities they may or may not have committed.
I would like to take this time to point out some of the high points of Martin's argument, which, unlike Laidman's mostly made up argument, appears to have come directly from God (thanks JC!). First, Martin hits an early peak by contrasting Laidman's opinion that Notre Dame students are not active enough by pointing out those people in SDH that made him sign a Darfur banner. See Laidman, Martin unwillingly signed a piece of paper protesting genocide and that's pure noble activism. What do you want him to do, read a book on the subject and write his senator? Good luck, grandma.
Secondly, Martin points out what college is really about, not protesting or even learning, but good old-fashioned partying. And like he says, this is college, a place not where we are to be young and idealistic and actually care about humanitarian crises or the systematic rolling back of civil rights and liberties in the U.S., but rather where we can have more than 25 of our close personal friends over, drink booze, sweat and maybe make out with some guy or girl we have never met - go college!
Finally, I want to high-five him on that last line: Defending America from terrorists, wherever they may lie. See, it's a pun - not only is he insinuating that the terrorists are lying down (which is probably why we still cannot find Osama), but he is also insinuating that Laidman is telling a lie. Or more than one, for that matter. And he is right, Laidman's column is filled with falsities - there are no Americans held at Guantanamo Bay without charge, there are terrorists. Hurricane Katrina didn't reveal inadequate federal response, it was just a big hurricane man, what do you think, we can predict the weather?
I think I've made my point. So thank you, Martin, for protecting us from the delusions brought on by the liberal media. I'm glad to know that the next time we are in need of someone to defend this helpless body of predominantly upper-middle class white males, Martin will be there chanting U.S.A. and pouring chocolate milk all over his face (see old facebook profile pictures).
Michael Warren Redding
senior
off campus
Sept. 4
