"Apparently we've got complaints from around campus that we're being too loud," said junior Ben Ratliffe, after a police officer had a word with organizers. "I would say we've got complaints of our own."
An ad lib response to criticism that flips the words for rhetorical effect. I wonder if Ratliffe noticed the similarity to the famous Bush World Trade Center quote.
Here's Ratliffe's message:
Ratliffe said the protest was aimed at getting military recruiters and the ROTC program "out of our schools." He said the war on terror is a "euphemism for military expansion."
The money being used for the war in Iraq should be used here at home to promote jobs and health care, he said.
And then there were the "more strident" members of the crowd:
Sophomore [name deleted] said she supports the resistance in Iraq and said it will continue as long as the U.S. military is there.
Why did I delete the name? I can't bear to slur one of my University's students with her own vile remark.
UPDATE: Here's the Badger Herald story on the protest, which notes that "more than 100 students" participated in the walk-out. To calculate the percentage of students who participated, here is the number of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: 41,588.
And check out the comments to this post. There's an excellent debate about why I deleted the student's name and a surprising lack of hostility toward the student despite the utter stupidity of her remark. I guess people have seen enough Che T-shirts on clueless young people not to be too bothered by the foolish romanticization of rebellion.
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१८ टिप्पण्या:
I don't think Ann is enabling her idiocy. I think she's being kind, knowing well that the idiocy of college students can be transitory. Besides, her name is in the Capital Times article linked to.
Interesting debate! Carry on.
The one talking about money forgot about one important thing: kicking out the recruiters would mean a massive loss of funding for the University as per the Solomon Amendment. Tuition would skyrocket if these idiots accomplished what they wanted.
Anyway, I was there, and have blogged it at my blog, if you're interested.
It may, indeed, have been a rhetorical device - measured, marked, merciful.
I liked lmeade's comment about the idiocy of college students being transitory. I would hate to be held accountable for everything I said while in college.
Ya gotta love a country, though, that's allows people to say things like this.
First, I deleted Joe's comment only because it had the email address of the student who made the vile remark. One rule here has to be, don't give out other people's email addresses. I know you have reason to think this is an exception, but I disagree. Here's what Joe wrote -- an excellent comment otherwise --minus the email address:
"[Deleted] is the e-mail address of the student who says she supports the Iraqi resistance. Her name is [deleted].
"Have at her. I certainly will.
"As a college student, let me say that this is the main problem that allows reactionary idiocy to flourish on campus; people don't shout it down enough.
"People should be viciously attacked for their opinions - smart, stupid, agreeable, disagreeable, on my side, on their side, it doesn't really matter.
"The best way to learn is to find everything you cherish under constant siege. And students who don't want that, shouldn't go to college.
"How does the Theo Van Gogh quote go? 'Free speech is an arena where we should be able to hurt each other.'
"Maybe this [delted] girl would learn about the world a good deal quicker if she were called on it and taken down a peg when she said vile things."
Thanks for the comment, Joe. I know you're a student and feel more comfortable being hard on students than I do. I respect your comments and encourage you as a commenter.
Thinking about the Che shirts, the "cuppa Joe", and bone-head parrot girl just reminded me of something a South Korean military officer once told me when I was exasperated by some silly student protest. He said the ROK government was well aware of the level of DPRK intelligence activity in the student protest movement, but that many of their best informants were former student ajitators who grew up, saw the world for what it really was and felt bad about what they had done. I only hope that our repentant Communist-enabling utopian-minded soft-hearted boobs become equally productive members of society when they grow up.
"I would say we've got complaints of our own."
Almost fell out of my chair reading that one. Ah, Youth! Ah, Self-Importance! Ah, the travesty that such fine sentiment wouldn't have been noted on the citation had the cops written her up.
Is the unnamed student perhaps filling a seat in an Althouse seminar? That would make me pause at naming her. Otherwise, as rabid comments go, hers was pretty tepid, and Althouse readers don't seem to be of the polarized or vigilante type (with the possible exception of Joe).
I long for the day when the military gets all the money it needs and public education has to have a bake sale to buy books for schoolchildren.
And we're getting there. :D And kids like these protestors are leading the charge.
Underground Man: I know the name is easily found in the article I linked. I just felt bad about including the name of the individual on the blog of a UW professor. I think her comment was representative of the sort of thing some young people say and didn't want to focus on her specifically.
The girls comment didn't surprise me at all. I've heard so much of the rhetoric here that I tune it out to some degree, which really is too bad, because Joe is right. Conservatives on this campus (and I'm an active College Republican) tend to have a stronger outlook because they've been yelled at by so many leftists. We're testing our ideas every day. The left isn't.
Maybe I am too fairminded, but I don't know if I would be so quick as to categorize the student's remark as vile. Silly, maybe, vile?... hard to say from a two sentence quote. Very possible that our little Badger simply believes that the U.S. military should not be in Iraq, and that she supports our getting out of there. Not neccessarily, that she thinks the insurgents are her personal heroes.
Michael Costello has an excellent opinion piece in today's Australian which, along with the article linked to by eddiep, above, and the article linked to by smash, would give any college student of any political persuasion plenty of food for thought.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,12856956,00.html
Our unnamed protester apparently found time to sign a letter expressing outrage that freedom of speech was "blatantly attacked" on another campus across the country at CCNY in New York. According to the letter, four people were arrested for "exercising their constitutionally protected right to assemble and to protest."
Let's look a little closer. According to The Columbia Spectator, the arrestees were attempting "to create a disruption designed to drive recruiters out of the building, a technique that worked at two CCNY events last semester." Hardly sounds like an exercise of peaceful assembly.
According to the CCNY administration, it was the students who turned violent. CCNY's president stated in an e-mail that the students "grabbed and hit" the security officers. (The protestors say it was security that got rough. )
Eventually, the students were arrested and arraigned for, among other charges, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, and disturbing the peace.
Now I don't know exactly what happened at CCNY, and I suspect our Wisconsin protestor doesn't either. Two questions come to mind:
1. Why is she so "outraged," "dismayed," and willing to make demands of a college administration thousands of miles away from her when there are clearly two sides to the story?
2. Does she really think that her cause du jour, freedom of speech, would be well served in Iraq if the forces of democracy are overcome by the insurgency she professes to support?
Just askin'.
In the prior post the link to the letter is bad. Here is a better link.
"Maybe I am too fairminded, but I don't know if I would be so quick as to categorize the student's remark as vile. Silly, maybe, vile?... hard to say from a two sentence quote."
Well, since my son is in Iraq being shot at by the so-called resistance, I would have to categorize it as vile, to say the least.
Like it or not, this country is at war. And this student, however ignorant she is (which she is), is in effect advocating the killing of Americans (and Iraqis, for that matter) by the enemy.
And what the hell does she think they're "resisting" against? I bet democracy wouldn't be on her list.
I spent 26 years in the Air Force, including the obligatory year in Vietnam 1970-71, and another 14 years or so in Europe, watching the Soviets right across the border, 70 miles from where I lived. That gives me a bit of a different slant on this situation. I've also been a full-time student (AND working full time for the military). I don't think the STUDENTS thought this up without some help somewhere.
Military service isn't an easy career to follow. The 24-hour days get to you now and then, as does the lousy pay, the sometimes horrible working conditions, and the occasional live ammo headed in your direction. At the same time, it's some of the most important work done by ANYONE in this nation. The only reason airheads on campus can say stupid things about the military is because the military has consistently beaten in the heads of those that would have imposed a gag rule upon college students - and others.
As for "spending money on social issues instead of the military", look at Poland in 1939. That's what happens to societies that aren't committed to defending themselves. Poland never had a chance to build a strong military, and paid dearly for it. The United States creates and maintains the most powerful military in the world to ensure that what happened to Poland (and many, many others) doesn't happen here. THAT, unfortunately, isn't a lesson our colleges seem willing to teach young people these days. Let us pray the military continues to remain strong enough to ensure it's not a lesson learned the hard way.
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