Columbia's Recent "Protest"
I guess there are protests and then there are protests. In one, you respect the rights of those that you disagree with. In the other, you behave like an immature, oafish weenie.
The recent protest at Columbia in NYC falls into the second category. Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen, was invited to speak on campus by the college Republican party. While he was at the podium, students rushed the stage, kicked and threw punches at him, and shut down his speech by their general hooliganism.
It doesn't matter if you disagree with Gilchrist's philosophy, that kind of reaction is wrong. An essential part of democracy is freedom of speech, and our democracy allows many ways to disagree with the results of freedom of speech in order to leaven that particular freedom.
Behaving like immature, oafish weenies (that subsequently shouldn't be qualified to scoop up duck poop once they graduate with their worthless Columbia degrees) is not one of those ways.
If you're interested in watching video of the event, here it is.
The recent protest at Columbia in NYC falls into the second category. Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen, was invited to speak on campus by the college Republican party. While he was at the podium, students rushed the stage, kicked and threw punches at him, and shut down his speech by their general hooliganism.
It doesn't matter if you disagree with Gilchrist's philosophy, that kind of reaction is wrong. An essential part of democracy is freedom of speech, and our democracy allows many ways to disagree with the results of freedom of speech in order to leaven that particular freedom.
Behaving like immature, oafish weenies (that subsequently shouldn't be qualified to scoop up duck poop once they graduate with their worthless Columbia degrees) is not one of those ways.
If you're interested in watching video of the event, here it is.
posted by ToadRocket at 7:14 AM
3 Comments:
I really appreciated that at Western Washington University (known as that "hippy" college to Washington natives) they have had events to specifically address freedom of speech. Which means they invited people to present/speak that they knew would rile up the student body and then made their point that you need to treat EVERYONE respectfully and that freedom of speech applies to everyone, not just liberals.
Sounds like a level-headed place. I wish that were more the rule for colleges these days. Seems like what happened at Columbia is getting more and more common. Perhaps not in intensity, but in philosophy.
Yeah, I think it was in response to an attack on some pro-life display on campus.
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