Berkeley Should be Ashamed (Rep.Louie Gohmert)

We were endowed by our Creator with liberty, but like any inheritance, it can only be kept if people are willing to fight for it. That is precisely why so many of our uniformed military members have laid down their lives. How ironic that a local government is only able to make moronic ordinances belittling and restricting our military and its recruiters because so many of those they belittle have been recruited, put on the uniform, and given their lives to protect that right to make nonsensical decisions.

The City of Berkeley should be ashamed to vilify our Marines by characterizing patriots who risk their lives for their nation as ‘unwelcome intruders.’ Since Berkeley’s leaders have denied freedom to the protectors of our most precious freedoms, the City should also be denied the money it has used to abuse our heroes. We should not financially reward a city that denigrates our service members. Berkeley has the right to disagree with the war, but this insulting, arrogant, elitist, condescending slap at our military by an ungrateful local government should have consequences.

In response to this travesty I have cosponsored Rep. Campbell’s legislation that rescinds Berkeley’s federal funding and reallocates it to Marine recruiting. I am also about to file my own bill that denies federal funding to any city, county or state government that unduly restricts the operation of our protectors and their recruiting offices. Cities like Berkeley might also take stock of how many of their own first responders were trained and are now saving their citizens lives as a result of prior military service. When soldiers came back from Viet Nam, they were often spit on. Now, Berkeley has chosen to spit on our soldiers in a figurative, but effectively hurtful way.