Oh, John Stout. You don't know what it means to be an American and to live in a free country. You seem to think you do and can demand of our city officials that they not censor you.
Evidently you don't realize that we all have the same freedom of speech and that your neighbors -- we the people -- are telling you that you are out of line and the people of our community will censor you.
Distasteful messages or words displayed for all to see is not acceptable. We don't want your example of free speech to be paraded in front of the children of our community. We think it is sick to display distasteful words in public. We call it graffiti and will do what is necessary to remove it.
We all mourn the lives lost in fighting to preserve the freedom we all enjoy in the United States and thank our veterans for their sacrifices. You can think as you like about what our country is doing in Iraq and why. Our country of free-thinking people has differences of opinion on the Iraq war.
I for one believe we are doing the right thing standing up against the Muslim extremists who want to destroy us, our country and our way of life. Others feel we should not be doing it in Iraq. This is healthy disagreement in our free society. Our system of democracy will win the argument as it has throughout our history.
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Your distasteful sign is not a healthy argument. You are out of line with the values of our society and I believe public opinion and our laws will cause you to change.
I am also upset with the newspaper for publishing the Nov. 3 story. The newspaper displayed the same words on the front page, which was not necessary to the story. Front-page news and novels have different standards. The newspaper's insensitivity is contributing to the downward slide of the decency of speech in our country.
Peter Poss
Willmar
