Some opinions about the war floating around are simply ludicrous.

Among the absurd rises a notion that protesting war is unpatriotic. Critics of the protesters claim the practice shows disrespect to troops overseas.

They’ll cry out, complain and call for a stop to such “anti-American sentiment.”

Someone should burn whatever flag this group carries and set these strayed people straight.

Roy Lanham, a protest leader and campus minister at the Newman Catholic Center, said he and fellow protesters have only the utmost respect for the troops abroad.

In fact, Lanham said protesting is a means to justify an end to the war and to show the troops how much they care.

“I’m not protesting the men and women following orders,” Lanham said. “I have the utmost respect for them. We’re doing this because we care so deeply about our men in arms. We say no war — not in our name.”

Lanham said the similarities between King George II’s current war and his father’s frolic in 1991 number too high to count. But Lanham predicts a key difference this time around.

This time, they’ll keep protesting.

Lanham said he had more than 200 protesters on board leading up to Operation Desert Storm. When the conflict began the numbers dwindled to less than 30.

“The unfortunate reality is that people are afraid that protesting doesn’t support the troops,” Lanham said. “But that just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Although he has an anti-war bias, Lanham could walk side-by-side with many passionate pro-war activists in patriotism.

Many pro-war activists take a pro-protest stance, hopefully they’ll become more of the rule and not the exception.

Douglas Bible, a history major and ROTC cadet said he isn’t necessarily pro-war, but thinks the diplomatic stage of the Iraqi debacle ended.

“People have the right to protest,” Bible said. “That’s why we have a military, to fight to protect that right. But I just find it interesting that you could boil it down to them supporting someone who is up there at the level with some of the really bad people from the 20th century.”

Fellow cadet and senior psychology major Ryan Purdy won’t join protesters and questions their credibility and education about the issues involved.

“I think it is right for people to voice their opinions,” Purdy said. “But I want to know how many of them out there didn’t vote. I think protesting is OK and I believe their rights are there, but they should do their part.”

But democracy isn’t a merit-based system. While many have shed life and limb to protect democracy, that doesn’t mean people don’t have the right to take it for granted. Democracy exists as divine rights, which in part is why America works to settle conflicts in places where democracy plays far less than divine.

Protesters don’t go through a civic duty checklist to be OK’d for their right to assemble and petition.

I’m staunchly pro-war, but why fight for another country’s freedom if we didn’t have those rights first? Our inalienable rights include the right to petition, even at times of war.

We don’t shed these rights at the brink of war and in times when popular sentiment says don’t exercise your rights. If that happened, slavery would exist and only white property owners would have the right to vote.

So keep pushing the protest envelope — go ahead, mess with Texas. Don’t get discouraged by unpatriotic nay-sayers.

Keep on protesting — few things more patriotic exist.