Reggie Rivers
Our military is one of the last bastions of slavery in the United States. At the moment, our slaves are stuck in a combat zone, and there's nothing they can do about it except hunker down and pray.
Yes, our slaves signed up of their own free will, but most of them were as misled about their job as the rest of us were about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
And I don't think "slave" is too strong a word to describe someone who is not permitted to quit his job no matter how dangerous it becomes or how much he hates it. For most of us, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and guaranteed that we have the right to withhold our labor. It doesn't protect soldiers...
The Denver Post's editors really have an impeccable sense of timing running this drivel on Memorial Day weekend.
Rivers has been a talk radio host in Denver as well as hosting a t.v. show. His biography from Brooks International Speakers Bureau indicates:
He was born into an air force family as the fourth of five . During his youth, he lived in Ohio, England, Florida and Greece before his family settled in the San Antonio area. He spent the remainder of his adolescence in Central Texas.
A blurb at Advocates for Self Government points out that Rivers supported Harry Browne for President and has said in a column that, "I'm mostly libertarian in my views, although I probably believe in a bigger government role than do most true libertarians."
Of course, that same blurb calls Rivers a former "star" running back for the Broncos. The stats would indicate otherwise. He rushed for 428 total yards in a 6-season career while racking up 675 receiving yards in that same span.
He's also been called a "progressive" in materials promoting a speech at First Unitarian Church of Denver.
A Libertarian Party news brief mentions that Rivers actually voted for Al Gore by absentee ballot but later said he would've supported Browne:
One area where Rivers does wholeheartedly agree with Libertarians: The issue of medical marijuana. In a previous column, he wrote: "I'll vote yes on the medical marijuana bill [Colorado's Amendment 20, which passed with 54% of the vote in November] not because I'm a proponent of marijuana use, but because I'm a believer in individual choice."
Rivers, who is also a talk show host on KHOW radio in Denver, interviewed Harry Browne during the presidential campaign, telling Browne that he would have voted for him, but had already cast an absentee ballot for Al Gore.
In addition to his other activities, Rivers is a color analyst for regional college football broadcasts for ABC Sports, and writes a weekly sports column for the Rocky Mountain News. He has written two books, and won the Denver Broncos "Man of the Year" award in 1996.
Rivers also seems to consider flag-waving to be a bad thing in a column in which he says:
My passion has been sparked by furious nationalistic flag-waving, the detention of Arab nationals, the passing of the misnamed U.S.A. Patriot Act, the government's decision to listen in on attorney-client conversations, the president's executive orders to create military tribunals and his later order to ensure that presidential documents could be sealed from public view forever.
These are all direct threats far more devastating than anything terrorists could do. The commitment we have to our Constitution is very much like that of a marriage. Outside forces might be able to burn down your home, destroy your car or kill family members, but only you and your spouse can initiate a divorce.
Another column starts off ominously:
It's impolitic to mention any similarity between U.S. leaders and terrorists, because we don't think of ourselves in those terms. Sure, our strategic objectives sometimes compel us to support terrorists, brutal regimes and dictatorial rule, but we are not terrorists ourselves.
Then goes downhill:
If we're learning anything, it's that the line between legitimate warfare and terrorism is sometimes extremely thin.
Our media try to make the landscape clearer by adopting vernacular that paints our side with a brush of valor and the enemy with the stain of illegitimacy. Our troops are called "soldiers," but people fighting on the other side are "insurgents." This distinction quickly establishes that "soldiers" engage in legitimate warfare while "insurgents" engage in terrorism.
Another position Rivers took was supporting the renaming of Columbus Day.
A large number of his columns have been found reprinted at Common Dreams News Center, which describes itself as "Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community."
I'll close by once again quoting Rivers, "I'm mostly libertarian in my views, although I probably believe in a bigger government role than do most true libertarians."