Semper Fi Act - Take that Berkeley!
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, (R-TX) a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, today announced his support for the Semper Fi Act, legislation introduced by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, that would send a strong message of disapproval to the City of Berkeley, Calif., for its recent decision to bar the U.S. Marine Corps from recruiting within city limits. The Semper Fi Act would rescind any earmark funding in they fiscal year 2008 spending package that would have gone to Berkeley or any entity in the city—a total of more than $2 million—and transfer those funds to the Marine Corps to be used to recruit new Marines.“The Berkeley City Council insulted our troops and offended people across the country. If the U.S. Marines are not good enough for Berkeley, neither are taxpayer dollars Congress would have sent there this year. That city closed its doors on the same individuals taking bullets on the front lines while fighting for the safety and freedom of families in Berkeley and throughout America,” Sen. Cornyn said.
“The Semper Fi Act sends a strong message of disapproval—backed by tangible consequences—to the Berkeley City Council. It also shows support for the Marines whose selfless sacrifice is worthy of our admiration. I encourage all my Senate colleagues to support this legislation.” The Berkeley City Council passed a resolution in late January declaring that the U.S. Marine Corps “is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” The Council went further by granting Code Pink, an anti-war group, special approval to non-violently “impede, passively or actively” the work of the Marine Corps recruiters.
Tags: Berkeley, John Cornyn, Marine Corps, Marines, Senator, US Senator To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Posted by Bill Smith at 10:29 PM - Post Link
4 Comments:
This is great news! Let's get back to basics and move this mountain! Do you hear the socialist squirrels on the run?
I sure do!
The largest cut in this legislation would be to the University of California, a state institution which has an ROTC program, allows military recruiting and whose chancellor denounced the city council action. Its professors and staff come from all over the San Francisco Bay area, and its students come from all over the state of California, other states and from around the world. It makes no sense to punish this university for the actions of a city council over which it has no control.
It is interesting that Stephen Denney's previous post is interested in loss of funds at the Univ. of CA. He expresses concern for ROTC students but in fact is the author of the following blogs like:
"Liberal Values" which blogrolls Daily Kos, Al Franken, etc.
"Banned books and other forms of censorship" on which he says:
"Personally, I think the city council should have the right to say whatever it likes about the Marine recruiting center without fear of losing funding; I also believe that the recruiting center should be allowed to function and people who are curious or interested should be allowed to visit it. But this legislative reaction is way over the top, punishing many people who have nothing to do with the Berkeley City Council and in some cases don't even live in Berkeley."
Stephen - free speech is the very thing that the Marines have fought for the Berkley leaders and other to express. BUT exercising one's free speech does not mean that one does not face responsibility for exercising that free speech.
There is no guarantee to continued access to the public funding when the agency providing the funding is offended by the free speech. You can use all your own local funding and exercise free speech to your hearts content but that does not mean the rest of us are obligated to fund any agencies or groups that you or in this case Berkeley.
In a free country, we also able to say NO to the results of exercised free speech content expressed by others. And that includes our saying enough is enough -- No funding for asinine speech and behavior at Berkeley.
I do not have a problem with military recruiting on campus or the ROTC program. But my point was that it makes no sense to punish the Univ. of California for the actions of the Berkeley City Council, when the university is an entirely separate entity from the city, has an ROTC program and allows military recruiting. You want to punish an innocent third party for the actions of another party. Secondly, while I oppose the actions of the Berkeley city council in allowing a weekly four hour parking space to Code Pink in front of the center, I don't agree with your idea that simply expressing a contrary opinion about the war or military recruiting is in itself justification for cutting of federal funding. To me, that goes against the principle of free speech.
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