Inflammatory rhetoric is a form of self-expression, a form of creative and political freedom and is entitled to the same Constitutional protection by the First Amendment and Article One of the Texas Constitution as any other form.
The First Amendment specifically protects the right of the individual "to petition the government for a redress of grievances." The Constitution demands stronger language and inflammatory rhetoric to achieve this objective.
President John F. Kennedy pointed out that we must be prepared to pay any price, to bear any burden to ensure the survival of liberty. Inflammatory rhetoric and whatever inconvenience it causes are indeed a very small price to pay, and a very light burden to bear for America to fulfill its mission of intellectual and creative freedom in the world.
We have to bend over backwards to accommodate the right to petition in the strongest possible terms for a redress of whatever grievance there may be.
Arthur K. Smith is incapable of understanding that we cannot have it both ways: We cannot sit on both sides of the fence, and have our cake of freedom and eat it too, and be the cowboy and the Indian, and an African and an American simultaneously, and stay free and run this country like a police state and retaliate for expression of points of view that attack, ridicule and knock out the opinion of the majority.
We simply cannot preserve intellectual and creative freedom on this campus if we turn it over to be run by an unscrupulous fascist who hates freedom and looks for ways to retaliate at efforts at self-expression that challenge and insult the consensus. He is unfit for the job.
Fabian Vaksman
doctoral candidate, history
I usually find myself agreeing with Ed De La Garza's columns, and his recent column on abortion activists is no exception. However, while I agree with his intent, I am troubled by his method of portraying his views. I will not condone the gassing, bombing, or other destruction of abortion clinics, nor do I believe in the Radical Right's attempts to curtail abortion and contraception. Even though I am ostensibly pro-choice, his portrayal of the Right is unfair.
First he draws a comparison and implied hypocrisy that the Right is against abortion but for the death penalty. In the mindset of pro-lifers, life begins at contraception. If you look at everything through that state of mind, everything becomes more clear, even if you don't agree with that mindset. The Right believes that an innocent life is an innocent life. There is no greater innocence than a life conceived but not yet born. Karla Faye Tucker was not innocent, as she admitted to gruesomely taking the life of two women and therefore lost her right to life. The unborn children never had a chance.
Secondly, he quotes a co-founder of Operation Rescue as saying "hate (for abortion clinics) is good." From the aforementioned mindset, that abortion takes a human life, that hate is quite justified. Would you not hate Hitler? In the same way that we would hate a genocidal murderer, they hate abortion clinics.
Lastly, I find it ironic when the Left attacks the Right for being hypocritical in their views of pro-life and pro-capital punishment when the Left is equally as hypocritical.
Like you, I am anti-abortion for several reasons. In my heart, I know it's a potential human being, and that's enough for me to want it to live. However, I am also pro-choice (except in third-term abortions), because I'm not going to tell a potential single mother in the city that she must lose what chance she has for success because of my personal philosophy. As you said, it's about understanding that women and men are capable of making their own moral judgments. I couldn't agree with the sentiment more, even if I don't necessarily agree with the argument you provide to back it up.
R. Alex Whitlock
sophomore information systems technology major