A high school teacher is no longer teaching, and is receiving threats, because of how he spoke about the U.S. military. To read the news reports, you’d think that all he said was that people who join the military are stupid.

He did say that. He was wrong to say that. It isn’t true, and it’s bigotted.

He also said many things that are demonstrably true, valuable, useful, and generally censored:

1) The U.S. military doesn’t win any of its wars. (In the course of saying this he made bigotted comments about some of the victims of these wars, about which I haven’t heard any complaints.)

2. Killing machines fly over stadiums before sports games and are cheered, and there’s something sick about that.

3. Military recruiters lie. They make false promises of college. They are comparable to pimps. (Of course they do not always lie, but often they do. And, I suppose, whether you think killing for money or having sex for money is worse or regrettable at all is up to you.)

4. Students in high school should work very hard at academics in order to possibly have a chance at going to college, should they want to go to college.

5. Military ads sometimes make it sound like a vacation, but once you’re in the military you will be ordered about constantly, told when you can eat, when you can use the bathroom, etc. (There are, in fact, students who do not know this. Telling them seems quite helpful.)

By the way, if you think military recruiters should not have easy access to kids and information about kids, consider helping rein them in.