LA Times columnist defends Columbia mob

In the Los Angeles Times yesterday, columnist Meghan Daum defended the actions of the melee at Columbia University. That was when protesters ended a speech by Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist by rushing the stage.

THE EVENTS at Columbia University on Oct. 4, in which about a dozen students stormed a stage where the founder of an anti-illegal immigration group was speaking, didn't exactly resemble those of April 1968. There were no arrests, no soundtrack by the Grateful Dead, no occupation of the president's office. But considering that most young people are considered to be politically apathetic, you have to credit the Chicano Caucus and the International Socialist Organization for trying.

To be perfectly honest, I would rather young people be apathetic than terroristic. The actions of the students who stormed the stage are anathema to the idea of freedom of speech. Just because you disagree with the speaker, you do not have the right to shut that speaker down. To do so is to follow the tactics of the Bolsheviks, Mussolini, Hitler, and the Ayatollah Khomeini. "Credit for trying?" No one deserves credit for trying to circumvent the First Amendment, no matter their political affiliation.

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"This" isn't exactly uncharted territory for Columbia (full disclosure: I got a graduate degree at Columbia in the 1990s). But in the anti-Vietnam War '60s, things were different. Judging from the media coverage of the Gilchrist incident, the majority of students today see the protesters not as lionhearted heroes but as obstreperous liabilities to the university's commitment to free speech. In 1968, they might have been regarded as both. But now the tone seems sour, forcing the question of where and why the demonstrators may have gone wrong. Inexperience and lack of leadership? Is the political climate so confused and convoluted that we no longer have a firm grasp on the meaning of activism?

Maybe most people do not view violations of the First Amendment as legitimate protest. In my opinion, it's a good thing that most people find their actions repulsive.

Seeking answers to these questions, I called Mark Rudd. A founder of Students for a Democratic Society, Rudd was among the leaders of the Columbia revolt in 1968 and was later a member of the radical Weather Underground. No stranger to the ways in which protest can go astray — he was in hiding from 1970 to 1977 in connection with a bomb-making project that blew up a building and killed three people — he has since owned up to his mistakes and writes and speaks frequently on activism. I thought he could shed some light on the recent fracas at Columbia.

"No stranger to the ways in which protest can go astray?" Could there be an even greater understatement? HE WAS A TERRORIST. And being involved in the Weather Underground is more than a mistake, it was criminal. With these omissions, the writer no longer has any credibility.

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Still, I'll give them an A (OK, maybe a B+) for trying.

Apparently, it takes a communist revolution to earn an A+.

So does Rudd. "I'm not going to point a finger at these kids and say you're a hoodlum fascist," he said. "I'm just going to wait and see what they do." In other words, it's not Columbia's president who has to get his hands around this. It's young activists themselves.

So a former terrorist says they are not "hoodlums". What credibility does he have? Columbia's president does have to "get his hands around this." It is his responsibility to prevent intellectual thuggery on the campus. He's the person in charge, not the students.

Others blogging on this topic:
Bill's Bites
Common Sense Journal
Freedom Folks
Instapundit
Mark Nicodemo
Michelle Malkin
Patterico
Penraker