He's Wrong, But Kudos to Him

This guy is going to serve time and claims that he does not regret what he has done. Fine, as long as he is willing to serve his sentence.

A sailor turned anti-war activist was convicted Wednesday in a special court-martial of refusing to board the USS Bonhomme Richard as it deployed to the Persian Gulf in December.

A military judge found Petty Officer 3rd Class Pablo Paredes guilty of missing his ship's movement, but dismissed a second count of unauthorized absence, ruling it duplicative.

The 23-year-old New Yorker could receive a year in jail, a forfeiture of pay, reduction in rank and a bad-conduct discharge.

The big problem with modern day kids who think that they are engaged in "civil disobedience" is that they run from their punishment. The idea behind "civil disobedience" is to have the punishment bring attention to the lunacy of the crime. Being in jail for simply going to a diner, for example, shows the lunacy of the segregation laws of the 1960s.

Paredes is both misguided and wrong, but if he truly has strong convictions on this matter he should be willing to serve the jail time, accepting all of the punishments and let those be a statement of his conscientious objections.