Editor,

I want to speak to the Wednesday Aug. 21 “Viewpoint” written by William Simons, Commander, USN (retired).

His tone of condescension bothered me. This narrowness of vision says, “I am higher in the military chain of command than you regular citizens, therefore I know better than you, I know better what is good for you.”

The OLF controversy is not going to go away Commander, simply because you say that the most important thing is to suck it up and tolerate the noise. In my opinion this is not the “sound of freedom” as some would suggest; it is the sound of war and destruction meted out to anyone who’d dare challenge the collective “wisdom” of the militant culture that America has become. As you say, citizens who don’t like the noise and are looking to have this stopped are “the enemy.”

I would pose this question to you regarding the protection of so-called “American Freedoms.”

Please answer this: What, precisely, are you defending?

America today spends more on defense than all other “developed” countries combined and the mighty American military, a military that is charged with “protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States of America,” stands at attention and is supposedly ready to “defend its citizens.”

People in America have been beaten and arrested at times by police when they exercise their free-speech rights yet the military stands mute. This is not defending the Constitution, it is complicity in its demise.

You are a retired commander with 30 years of military experience. You probably have very good healthcare for you and your family, decent housing and a decent retirement income compliments of the largesse of the American taxpayer, yet you have the gall to refer to these citizens, the very taxpaying citizens that pay into the budget that keeps you in hearth and home as “the enemy” because they would like some peace and quiet.

To me, one of these citizens, your “Viewpoint” is breathtakingly arrogant and narrow in the extreme.

DAN FREEMAN

Clinton