Congressman Cohen: Protesting is Patriotic

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Mr. Speaker, this weekend tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans came to Washington to protest the war. It was reminiscent of Vietnam, as so much of this war is reminiscent of Vietnam.

What these people did was an act of patriotism and courage, exercising their first amendment rights and expressing their opinion that the policy of this administration and this country is wrong. As they protested, and throughout the weekend, American soldiers lost their lives. It is unfortunate that it seems that the calls of the people are not being heeded.

It is particularly distressing, Mr. Speaker, to hear one of the Cabinet members suggest that people who disagree with the administration are lending aid and solace to the enemy. That is wrong. The first amendment is about free speech. The demonstrations, the protests that happened this week were correct. Samuel Johnson said: ``The last refuge to which a scoundrel clings is patriotism.'' I think we saw people try to find patriotism to be the refuge rather than response to protests and analytical discussions of the policies in Iraq.