(1) Dear Editor, Chancellor Holub and the University of Massachusetts general population,

I am a recent graduate from UMass Amherst (class of 2007). Many of my family members have gone to UMass. My father went to UMass, my uncle went to UMass, my sister went to UMass, my fiancé went to UMass and I went to UMass. I was an RA at UMass for three years. Until recently, I have been a proud member of UMass Alumni. Then, even though your administration and campus speak out against it, you are still letting a terrorist speak at UMass.

You are letting someone who plotted and acted to destroy lives, ruin families, attempt to destroy this great nation, harm innocent people and steal away society’s peace of mind speak at UMass. You are using some sniveling story of “freedom of speech” to hide behind the atrocities you are too ashamed or too cowardly to stand up against. I used to champion the UMass campus, the good times I had, the great teachers, the events, the sports, the people, even sometimes the too liberal town. Not anymore. That feeling of community has been stripped from me because of your actions. Never have I been so ashamed to have been apart of something that was once so great.

Today is the sad day I take down my UMass pendants, scrape the UMass stickers off my cars, cancel all donations to UMass; the good word I spoke of UMass when telling friends and families about the good times, the great campus is all gone. All gone and replaced by a sense of shame, shame that I have supported UMass, shame that I went to UMass and shame that I recommended this University of Embarrassment to friends and family members.

There are still a few groups at UMass of which I am not ashamed. I would like to congratulate the UMass police for putting their foot down on the issue by organizing and attending a protest against this terrorist speaking. Well done, police, for standing up against this drivel of nonsense spewing from the professors at this once great campus. Also, President Jack Wilson must be commended for speaking out against such a deplorable human being speaking at a once great campus. Even he must remember though – actions speak louder than words.

The administration at UMass claims that it is letting this occur because of free speech. I support free speech. There is a fine line between supporting free speech and allowing hate to be echoed through the classrooms where many people have learned, taught and honored. You are giving a terrorist a forum to spout off his hatred. You are shaming the University by letting this atrocity occur on a campus without listening to the voice of the people who go there and who work there. You are bowing to the ACLU which is an extremist left wing propaganda factory.

I am sure you will lose many donations to the University over this issue, as you have already lost mine and I am sure many others as well. Perhaps if the losses get substantial enough you will finally think with a clearer head on matters such as this next time they arise, and with all the lunacy in the world today, I’m sure similar issues will occur in the future.

Remember, all that is needed for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

Chris Fuchs Jr.
UMass Alumni

(2) Dear Editor,

With his column, “One last moment of triumph,” Mr. Perry has once again caused the Founding Fathers to roll in their graves, bemoaning their decision to so highly stress the importance of free speech. I suppose Al Gore, the inventor of the Internet, is also to blame because he allowed Mr. Perry such easy access to a wealth of misinformation. Perhaps Mr. Perry accidentally changed the filter in StumbleUpon to “right-winged nut job” and since then hasn’t been able to find any other sites.

As far as I can tell, one of Mr. Perry’s biggest concerns is that “Obamacare” will be so popular that it would be political suicide for anyone to oppose it in the future. “If a candidate is telling 30 million people he is taking their health care coverage away, those 30 million people are highly unlikely to vote for that candidate.” I have to ask, if 30 million people are that happy with the plan, then why would politicians be trying to get rid of it? Mr. Perry goes on to say, “Democrats needed to seize the opportunity to push this bill through while they still held the political power to do so and they did it.” Although this is a rarely accurate statement for him to make, it sheds no light on the situation. Why wouldn’t the Democrats take advantage of an opportunity to pass a bill that has been a core of their platform for the past half century?

Costs seem to be a huge focus of his article. “In the next 10 years we can all look forward to health care costs skyrocketing, probably doubling and tripling before the costs become too high for anyone to afford.” This statement confused me because these are very similar to the projected costs of healthcare if no legislation is implemented. This brings us to the real point of the column: Mr. Obama and the rest of the liberals have an elaborate plan to destroy our current healthcare system and replace it with government run health care.

In 2008, health care insurance was the 28th most profitable industry in the US, according to the Fortune 500. UnitedHealth Group, was the 25th most profitable company, beating companies such as Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson. So, is Obama trying to completely reconstruct the health care system? Maybe. Hopefully. Perhaps if Mr. Perry spent less time worrying about what hurt America and spent more time worrying what hurt the American people, he would worry less about how much money the insurance companies would lose, how much the government will spend and more about how many people it will help.

I would like to conclude with my favorite quote from Mr. Perry’s article, “The bill was recently labeled ‘the worst bill ever’ by a Wall Street Journal editorial.” Even after his criticism in his piece on global warming, where he quoted an economist and tried to pass him off as a climatologist, Mr. Perry still hasn’t learned that saying something doesn’t necessarily make it true. Thankfully, this is the case; otherwise, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s comments on the Holocaust would have forced every publisher on the planet to rewrite their textbooks.

So much for the good week, indeed. Thanks, Mr. Perry.

Alan R. Levin
UMass student