MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2011
PAGE 5
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY GANSAN
Text your FFA submissions to 785-289-8341
opinion
FREE FOR ALL
I'm glad that display on campus was finally aborted.
From whoever keeps claiming leggings are not pants, I'll tell you what they are: my motivation to go to class on these otherwise dreary days, and I thank them.
Thank you, cold weather, for making the slut wear go into hibernation.
All this talk against Selby. Xelav didn't do much more. He is no more of a legend than Selby.
Old man with a rolly backpack
Yes!
I hate when I see boys walking around campus in skinnier skinny jeans than me...eat something, please.
Campus is a lot prettier without dead babies.
Sweater vests are sexy.
I don't care what you guys say... I think the new police cars are cute.
You go to the University of KANSAS. Take off your Michigan Wolverines hat and your Harvard sweater.
Sily freshmen don't realize how dumb they look chasing buses. It's a Campus Red, there will be another one in 15 seconds.
Dear Turner Gill, the wildcat doesn't work. Cut it out. Love, the students.
Does the defense practice or just play patty cake on the sidelines?
That awkward moment when you've just lathered the shampoo in the shower and the hall fire alarm goes off...at least I look good in a tour!
Dear Mizzou Quidditch Seeker,
standing by the bush whining the
whole game is not an excuse for
losing.
Just when you think Harry Potter marked the end of your childhood, Lion King 3D comes out. Three steps forward, 10 steps back.
Dear campus females, just because you wear Uggs and North-face jackets with your booty shorts doesn't mean you're adequately dressed for cold weather.
I like walking to class and being able to just look and know who's hunewet.
Even though our football team didn't win Saturday, I bet we could still beat the Chiefs!
Who wants to bring back ugly sweater Fridays with me?
"Wheels on the Bus" is being sung...I'm too sober for Safe Bus.
EDITORIAL
Freedom of speech is an inherent right of all people in the University of Kansas community and the United States. This includes popular speech, whether it's right to debate abortion or chalk students' opinions on campus.
Free speech applies to unpopular protests
It's a right that's protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and it allows healthy discussion while bringing positive change to a nation. It doesn't matter what you believe in, in this country, you have the ability to express your beliefs verbally as long as it doesn't directly harm someone.
Last week's anti-abortion display from Justice For All in front of Stauffer-Flint Hall sparked conversation about whether the graphic displays of aborted
fetuuses and images supporting anti-abortion views were necessary as students made their typical class rounds on campus. While Justice For All is a national pro-life organization that claims to use dialogue to spark discussion on the dangers of abortion, many students expressed dismay that the graphic images weren't a platform for discussion, but rather a spark for bashing a prochoice position.
Many wanted the displays gone, and would like to prohibit the organization from expressing a dissenting opinion from their own.
Personal opinions aside, the University community must recognize the First Amendment rights of this group to set up displays and graphics on campus.
Members of Justice For All did not violate any University codes or policies with their displays. They have as much of a right to be on campus as a group advocating a less divisive and more popular belief.
This nation was built on unpopular opinions - a limited minority of American colonists supported the Declaration of Independence when it was drafted. Also, the United States wouldn't have such a strong, united pro-choice movement if it weren't for an unpopular voice in the mid-1900s, the women's right movement, changing the perception of abortions.
In a 1977 court case, the American Civil Liberties Union - a national organization dedicated to protect freedoms -
decided to support the rights of a neo-Nazi group to demonstrate in a town in Illinois. In the process of winning the case, ACLU lost major funding and support from its Jewish constituency base. Unpopular opinions, or in the University's case displays have freedoms that must be protected, even at a costly price.
These First Amendment freedoms also extend to the student body. Last year, rules were changed for chalking on campus. Now, only student organizations "registered with the Student Involvement and Leadership Center are permitted to chalk on the property of the University."
This policy forces students to be a part of a club or organization in order to chalk. A
restriction like this runs counter to a university as a bastion of free speech. The University can and should enforce other measures of the policy that govern the type of chalk used, but not restrict a student's speech based on membership in a student organization. There is no reason a student who wants to express a belief or idea should be denied chalking as a medium for that expression.
You shouldn't discriminate people's freedoms based on their actions, just like you can't favor one group's rights over another based on a popular belief.
Vikaas Shanker for Kansan Editorial Board
PROTESTS
Civil disobedience doesn't always work
In June, capitol police officers threatened to arrest Lt. Dan Choi and other LGBT rights activists who were peacefully protesting outside the capitol building in Topeka if they did not dispose of the potentially dangerous weapons in their hands.
These "weapons" were American flags.
It isn't difficult to see that the officers' concerns had little to do with the actual flagpoles themselves. Even if American flags, symbols of patriotism, were somehow a display of potential violence, this issue did not come up until this specific group was demonstrating outside the capitol building.
Had it been an anti-immigration group or in the a pro-life demonstration in the same location, I have a feeling American flags on flapples would not have been an issue.
Because of this treatment by the capitol police and the discrimination it implied, the Kansas Equality Coalition and the Kansas National Organization for Women found a way to respond—again, peacefully. They had a pro-LGBT rights rally on the capitol steps again, and this time, they brought flags without poles.
But if our free speech is tampered with, we have ways to address the issue and fight back.
There are various methods of peaceful protest, some considered effective, some considered ineffective. Sometimes a method of protest that seems peaceful to one person may be termed violent by another. In the U.S., as long as we are peaceful, our speech and assembly are protected—that is, unless a situation like Dan Choi's protest occurs.
In Syria, peaceful protest has not been protected. The government has ordered troops to respond with
violence to peaceful demonstrators. Over 1,700 people have been killed since January, according to various human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
In Egypt, peaceful protest brought down a regime. But now, more anti-Mubarak protestors are demanding the former president be handed the death penalty swiftly. Protestors who once used peace are now turning to violence in response to a political figure who implemented so much violence against those protestors to begin with. The climate in Egypt is not conducive to a fair trial for Mubarak. With that in mind, the question is whether this form of violence, the death penalty, is legitimate, and whether its legitimatization makes it acceptable.
In the rest of this opinion series on protest and peace, columnists will explore various methods of protest, the cultural implications and sources of these methods, what qualifies as peaceful, and whether different methods are successful.
It is our hope that these discussions provide a back drop for further conversation on what we view as peaceful in the United States and in what ways we can make effective change through protest.
- Cosby is senior in English and political science from Overland Park. Follow her on Twitter @KellyCosby
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
Follow us on Twitter @UK_Opinion
Tweet us your opinions, and we just might
obtain them.
What did you think of the controversial ending to the #Ortiz/#Mayweather fight Saturday night?
taytay_nutman
@UDK. Ounion #fortiz
=class act. #Mayweather
cheap win. Is an
embarrassing human being
taytay_hultman
BOOKSTORE.COM
@UDK_ Opinion the headbutt from Ortiz was bushleague, but that sucker punch from Mayweather was just shameful.
NOT WORTH 55 DOLLARS.
BoomCityAdamT
brianiavgilmore
@URA. Opinion A headcup is one thing, but a straight sucker combo is a whole other story. *n inappropriate* TeamOrtiz
LIBYA
Nick Sambaluk
POLITICS
Republicans value office over progress
Creon, the tyrant in Sophocles' tragedy 'Antigone', offered a surefire way of assessing politicians' characters.
"You cannot know a man completely," Creon said, "his character, his principles, sense of judgment, not till he's shown his colors, ruling the people, making laws."
In the nine months since Republicans ascended to the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and pared down the Democratic edge in the U.S. Senate, the GOP has provided a window into their core convictions. What we've seen disgraces the party that ran on a platform of "Country First" in 2008.
Much as the Republicans' attempts to derail Obama work to the detriment of the country, it's only through the prism of McConnell's statement
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the GOP Senate leader, famously stated heading into the current congressional session that defeating President Barack Obama in 2012 was his party's top priority. While Obama's foreign and domestic policies are essentially those of a 20th century Eisenhower Republican, it's not too surprising that in today's tea party-dominated GOP, his ouster trumps all other concerns – reviving a torpid economy, investing in education, and fixing a health care system that the World Health Organization pegs at 37th in the world.
that GOP grandstanding and obstruction on the economy begins to make any sense.
The unfolding debate over Obama's $447 billion stimulus package will test the mettle of both Obama, who has all too often folded to GOP pressure, and congressional Republicans, whose "jobs, jobs, jobs" mantra contributed to their 2010 victories. Of course, we aren't supposed to call Obama's jobs proposal a "stimulus," even though stimulation is precisely what this sagging economy needs. The shortcomings of Obama's 2009 stimulus of $787 billion - which many experts predicted would not match the size of the crisis - apparently discredits the very notion of economic pump-priming by the government. That, at any rate, is the Republican narrative. Too timid to defend the necessity of robust government, many Democrats long ago conceded the debate.
What's particularly ironic is that most Republicans understand that government policy actually can revive consumer demand, provide jobs to the
legions of new college graduates and unemployed, and put us on the path to long term deficit reduction. (More paychecks mean more tax revenues, which in turn reduce the deficit.) When President George W. Bush pushed his 2001 tax cuts through Congress, he argued that putting money in people's pockets was essential to boosting the nation's economy. The same logic lies behind Obama's proposal for a payroll tax cut, job training, and infrastructure investment.
Former McCain economic advisor Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics forecasts that the Obama plan will lead to an extra two percent of economic growth in 2012. And that's exactly why Republicans will stonewall the president's jobs agenda.
One Republican staffer offered this frank assessment to Politico: "Obama is on the ropes; why do we appear ready to hand him a win?"
More likely than not, the GOP will do everything in its power to block Obama's stimulus. Two questions arise: Do Republicans care whether they increase the ranks of the jobless as they try to bring down a presidential? Most important, will Obama have the moxie to call their bluff, now that the opposition has revealed its colors?
— Luke Brinker is a senior from Topeka majoring in history. Follow him on twitter @LukeBrinker
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansai Editorial board are Kelly Strada. Jee Peterson, Jonathan Shorman, Vikas Shanker, Mandy Matthey and Stenfera Paeleni.