For those of you who haven't heard, a group of students UNC protested against a former Colorado Congressmen who had been invited to speak at the school until he was forced to flee for his safety.
Personally, I think the school officials should live up to one of their mascots, and apply the tar to the foul and offensive students and one faculty member who so disgraced their school and our country.
Freedom of speech is an American's constitutional right. The club who sponsored the speaker has a right to their viewpoint, whether or not others agree with it. He was not speaking at graduation, not addressing a classroom required for graduation, not even lecturing in a place where others would be forced against their will to hear it. Yet people who oppose the club and the speaker gathered, taunted him, held banners up over his face while he was speaking, and even through a brick through the window, shattering it into the classroom where he was speaking.
Why is it that "tolerance" is only tolerance when it supports one viewpoint? Why must politically explosive names such as "racist" be thrown at people who oppose illegal immigration?
Why call a person "fascist" simply because they believe in structure and organization?
Even IF those labels had applied in this case, these students had every right to picket peaceably outside, to sign a petition asking the club to revoke the invitation, to even sit in on the speech and hold signs of disagreement, but the anarchists tactics they displayed have no place in a university where our tax dollars help underwrite their tuition and in one case, a salary.
Sadly, North Carolina universities have displayed poor choices in examples of free speech this year, or I should say the abuse of free speech. There was a time when people were tarred and feathered for inappropriate behavior. While that would be an extreme reaction to such an incidence, these students and a teacher have certainly muddied the UNC footprint even more.
Personally, I think the school officials should live up to one of their mascots, and apply the tar to the foul and offensive students and one faculty member who so disgraced their school and our country.
Freedom of speech is an American's constitutional right. The club who sponsored the speaker has a right to their viewpoint, whether or not others agree with it. He was not speaking at graduation, not addressing a classroom required for graduation, not even lecturing in a place where others would be forced against their will to hear it. Yet people who oppose the club and the speaker gathered, taunted him, held banners up over his face while he was speaking, and even through a brick through the window, shattering it into the classroom where he was speaking.
Why is it that "tolerance" is only tolerance when it supports one viewpoint? Why must politically explosive names such as "racist" be thrown at people who oppose illegal immigration?
Why call a person "fascist" simply because they believe in structure and organization?
Even IF those labels had applied in this case, these students had every right to picket peaceably outside, to sign a petition asking the club to revoke the invitation, to even sit in on the speech and hold signs of disagreement, but the anarchists tactics they displayed have no place in a university where our tax dollars help underwrite their tuition and in one case, a salary.
Sadly, North Carolina universities have displayed poor choices in examples of free speech this year, or I should say the abuse of free speech. There was a time when people were tarred and feathered for inappropriate behavior. While that would be an extreme reaction to such an incidence, these students and a teacher have certainly muddied the UNC footprint even more.
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