Thursday, October 05, 2006

Coyote's Running Wild

Coyote is on a tear (must be catching up from all the summer work). That's good news for everyone! He has a way of cutting to the chase on issues away from the SNAFU du jour, and has the relevent experience to back it up. He also has an extremely uncharacteristic blogger trait: intellectual honesty. Here's just a sample from the last two days:

First, he muses the value of restrictions on free speech at his beloved Princeton. He links a very weird letter to the editor of the Daily Princetonian that both recognizes that Princeton is a private institution free to set its rules regarding allowable speech and then blasts it for doing, well, that. Today, Coyote clarified his consternation with a horrifying story from Columbia - horrifying in that Columbia felt providing a stage for the Minutemen was the right thing to do, and then has not taken action against protestors that stormed the stage.

I probably would not have attended the play at Princeton, and I certainly have heard enough of Gilchrist's rhetoric to know that I would have been as tempted as anyone to storm the stage (if nothing else, just to stop the annoying ringing in my ears whenever Gilchrist talks). Both Princeton and Columbia have customers and supporters to please; if they make the decision to provide a stage for things I may not find particularly engaging, so be it. Their students and alumni (I am neither of either) will let them know if their decisions are wrong. However, once they provide the stage they have the responsibility to, for lack of a better term, protect the voice from the stage.

In another great observation, Coyote takes on the "compassionate" bureaucrat. Point well taken: thousands of people went to work every day to earn the taxable income to buy the taxable houses, cars, DVD players, TVs, couches, and coffee tables that provided this park built on land that was possibly extorted from the owner under the threat of (or actual use of) emminent domain.

"I hate it when politicians are called "caring" or "compassionate" when the sole evidence for this is the fact that they take my money and give it to someone else or build something with it that they can put their name on."


Exactly.

Update: the Columbia video