Every day, our government increases its power and control over our lives. The Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and wiretapping are but a few of the many onslaughts against personal liberty brought on by an increasingly bold and absolutist government.

So when I heard someone (MSU Associate Professor John D. McCallie) stood up to a uniformed imperial storm trooper, my first reaction was not to scorn him for not submitting, but to applaud him for standing up for his dignity. If more people did so, instead of acting like slaves, the government might not be able to act so tyrannically.

I don't know the details, but it is foolish to believe that people should bow down to an oppressor because they wear a uniform of state, as The State News appears to feel. I suppose they also look down on the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto who shot uniformed agents of the law when they came to kill them.

Last year's stories condemning Michigan's passages of a measure that would decriminalize shooting an assailant without first running away betrayed The State News' belief that individuals have no business defending themselves from a criminal, especially with a gun.

Now we know that The State News also thinks it's wrong for people to use their teeth when the airport Nazis (it seems like the right term judging by how they dress and act) come to arrest them for littering.

David Garlock
music senior