This is Different, We Swear!
Pira Kelly, noted local loon, “defends” herself in an ODE guest commentary today. She attempts, quite laughably, to draw a distinction between calling for the defunding of The Oregon Commentator by a bunch of ignorant, pissed-off idiots and the more recent calls for the defunding of The Student Insurgent by different ignorant, pissed-off idiots.
They printed ableist, racist and homophobic slurs on a campus that is so hostile to students with disabilities, students of color and queer students that even minimalist and inadequate administrative attention to campus climate requires massive protest.
Well, aside from all of that being blatantly untrue, it doesn’t really change the principles involved any. Even were I to grant, out of some misguided sense of sportsmanship, that her claims are correct it would still be illegal to defund the Commentator for them. I guess from a world-view where oppossing affirmative action is “racist”, or where one can be positively for same-sex marriage but still a “homophobe”, or where satirizing Joe McCarthy creates a “racist environment“, Pira’s foolish attempts to justify calling to shut others up make sense. From the final paragraph:
In a special note to Tyler Graf, editor emeritus of the Commentator: I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to accomplish by defending our publication. Stock up points so that the next time you stomp on someone we’ll feel so indebted to you that we won’t call you out? How The Insurgent collective interacts with you and the Commentator is not my decision, but as an individual I am not ever going to allow injustice to happen because the perpetrators came to my defense with empty rhetoric when it was convenient for them.
Firstly, congratulations to Tgraf for provoking such ire from a pinko. Secondly, The Commentator is defending The Insurgent precisely because we have principles. It is more important to us that everyone be free to openly exchange ideas than that those ideas are ones we agree with, or even if they’re even logical. There is a lot of case law surrounding this issue, Pira, and more importantly a matter of deeply held principle on the part of the Oregon Commentator and its staff. Individuals should never, under any circumstances, be legally punished for expressing their opinion regardless of how stupid, hurtful, offensive, or improper some other person or group of people might find it. That’s one of the greatest insights to come out of the Enlightenment, and one of the most important freedoms to protect. That you can’t understand something so beautifully simple exposes a horrendous flaw in your judgement, and shows you to be one of the most duplicitous sort: one who will gladly grant government authority to take retributive actions against those with whom you disagree, but then has the audacity to complain when others demand that same authority be leveraged against you.
Frankly, you make me ill, but I will defend to the death your right to do so.
