McCain is the wrong choice

There are numerous reasons why John McCain is not a candidate that Americans should be voting for. Most notably his sponsorship of the Military Commissions Act. This unconstitutional piece of legislation gives the President the power to deem an American citizen an “unlawful enemy combatant,” strip them of their citizenship, have them deported and even tortured and executed. This bill was signed into law by the President in 2006, by the way. It would seem like a McCain presidency would continue the trend of eroding our civil liberties. Furthermore, am I the only person who is utterly disgusted by McCain’s statement that “the American people won’t mind if we are in Iraq for another 100, 1,000, or even 10,000 years?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJWoGulgbec) Am I the only person who was utterly disgusted when McCain started singing “bomb bomb bomb Iran!” at a town hall meeting? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o zoPgv_nYg) Clearly, John McCain does not represent me and I seriously doubt he represents the majority of the American people.

Jeremy Christiansenior, computer science

Separation is what America’s founders intended

It feels like every year the Campus Forum goes through a chain debate on religion in politics. I encourage anyone interested to enroll in REL 320, American Religious History, the next time it is offered. Any historian or scholar of American religion can tell you about Thomas Jefferson tearing pages out of his own Bible because he didn’t agree with the logic, or Benjamin Franklin’s constant criticism of the policies of the Church of England interfering with political issues. Harry (Casey) Yarbrough implied that a non-Christian president would ruin the “prosperous way of life” in America … if by that he means the capitolistic society that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer and is a major threat to the condition of the middle class family (to which the majority of our students belong), then maybe a “hippie” president wouldn’t be such a bad thing, regardless of religion (because yes, hippie Christians do exist). It is the freedom of religion that America offers that allowed for the rise of Protestant divisions — what were then considered minority cult groups, such as Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians — to become the mainstream majority. If our Founding Fathers had intended for this to be an all-Christian, scripture-following nation, then they would have said so in our Constitution. Instead, they offered religious freedom and a separation of church and state, which have been strongholds of the American way.

Ben Mazursenior, religious studiesChair, NCSU Committee on Faith Based Activities