The Blog, The Speaker, and the Students

We have here a lesson as to why blogs are infinitely better than traditional media sources. I was intrigued by this story the other day, and Ann Althouse ties it all together with links to several different articles and several You Tube videos of the incident.

In brief, a speech by Minuteman project founder Jim Gilchrest at Columbia University was interrupted by protesters and violence ensued. As an interesting side note, some Columbia students are objecting to the use of student's FaceBook pages as part of the investigation. All in all, there are just a number of fun issues here.

See Ann Althouse on the Facebook complaints. I pretty much agree with her whole-heartedly. I've got a bit more to say about the protest however. This is the sort of "campus activism" on the left that continues to baffle me. Why do you attempt to silence speakers you don't agree with? The lonely libertarian would be even more lonely if he engaged in that sort of behavior- he'd have no one at all to talk to!

I'm not very sympathetic to the Minutemen, but let the guy speak. I'd love the chance to debate the guy and ask him some tough, relevant questions. Why ruin it by standing up and being an asshole?

The theme throughout these stories? An overwhelming sense of self righteousness. How dare the school read my public facebook page, and how dare they invite a speaker with different views than my own. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the future.