I admire people willing to stand up for their beliefs. They're the brave folks unafraid to hang their names and faces on their controversial messages.

Last weekend in Fayetteville, a thousand people exercised their constitutional right to tell their president that they think he's wrong about the war. They did it with songs, speeches, prayers and signs. But mostly they did it by standing up and telling the world, "This I believe."

Counter-protesters told members of the larger group that they were the ones who were wrong and the president is right about the war.

Good for both sides.

So it goes with the endlessly fascinating American dialogue. It takes place in bars and barracks, legislatures and living rooms. It can be messy, occasionally uncomfortable and may sometimes be more fiery than factual.

The trick is to remember that such passionate debate is not anarchy but an inspiring expression of American freedom in all its noisy glory. It is especially difficult to keep that in mind when you're on the receiving end of the rhetorical barbs, as I've been lately for what has appeared in this space.

But not all activists have the courage of their convictions. They prefer to slink around in the dark with spray-paint cans and rocks, committing vandalism disguised as noble protest.

Yes, I'm talking to you, the chicken-hearts whose idea of courageous free speech is to toss a rock through a window and run away like naughty children afraid of being spanked.

People like you make a mockery of free speech. You're a skulking insult to the example set by the selfless civil rights and peace marchers of the '60s who were willing to, and often did, put their lives on the line for their beliefs. You're not worthy to wipe the dust from their shoes or the blood from their brows.

Last week, petulant vandals spray-painted "No war" on the walls and windows of the military recruiting office on Westgate Drive in Durham. A National Guard office on Durham's Hillsborough Road also was vandalized with paint, and a rock was thrown through a recruiting office window on Calvary Drive in Raleigh.

The vandals' courage might have been lacking, but their rhetoric was packed with fire and brimstone -- and more than a few tired cliches masquerading as revolutionary zeal:

"Fight imperialism," cried the slogan painted on a Raleigh sidewalk. Seems the rock chunkin' wasn't vandalism but "resistance against the brutal U.S. occupation in Iraq."

Ho-hum. It's hard to tell which is more pitiable -- their lack of creativity or their lack of understanding about how things work in the real world.

Memo to these make-believe Maoists: Military recruiters don't like the war in Iraq. It would be ever so much easier to recruit young folks into the military if they were more likely to be sent to Fayetteville than Fallujah. Trust me on this, war is not all that good for the recruiting trade.

And surely even the most rabid of you paint-can revolutionaries appreciates the irony of exercising your right to free speech by defacing the institution that has sworn a solemn oath to protect that right.

What's next in your cute little revolutionary tirade, thrown eggs and toilet paper?