Value system not deserving of life sacrifice
by Chris Taylor, editor-in-chief

    Besides the game itself, the best thing about the Super Bowl is the ads.

   Commercials seem to be the main subject Monday morning after the big game. This year Bud Light looks like the winner with several hilarious ads.

   The best had to be the beer-retrieving falcon commercial. Patriotism was also a big theme for the game and ads.

   One thing that bothered me was abundance of messages from players and celebrities thanking the troops overseas for “fighting for our freedom.”

   Our troops are not fighting for our freedom at all. Is there any proof that Afghanistan posed a serious threat to the lone superpower in the world? They harbored terrorists, but did anyone truly expect a full-scale invasion by Taliban troops on the beaches of California?

   It does sound kind of silly when it’s actually put into perspective.

   What our troops are fighting for, however, is revenge. I’m all for getting revenge, but let’s call it what it really is.

   Our freedoms were never under attack by Bin Laden. Our civilians were, because most of the world considers our government evil.

   The only group to attack our freedoms in the last year is our own government, especially since Sept. 11.

   We are so obsessed with revenge and paranoia we immediately started attacking other Americans. First, it was violence against anyone of Middle Eastern descent; then it was discrimination against Arabs on planes. Now the United States has decided to take out its anger on a young man—John Walker Lindh.

   Is Lindh really the one we want, or is he just a sacrificial lamb to appease our anger over the attack on our nation?

   Why would anyone attack America? We are right and our way is not only the best way, but the only way, right?

   That might have been true 50 years ago, but now we are consumed with our own greed and other selfish desires.

   People hate Lindh for rejecting American values, but were those values that good in the first place? Greed, arrogance and religious persecution now seem to be the values we admire most.

   And that’s why Lindh should die. Not because he rejected our values, but because he showed us that our values aren’t that good.