Just One Minute Men [and women]

On Thursday night, the 5th of October 2006, a group of liberal Columbia students stormed the stage while the founder of The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps was speaking as an invited guest of the College Republicans, another student group. The disrupters stopped the speech, prevented a question and answer session, and chanted "si se pudo, si se pudo" ("yes we could") over and over again. "Could what?" I might ask. They had unrolled a banner onstage which said in English and Arabic "No One is Illegal." I agree that no one is illegal, but doesn't the founder of the Minuteman group deserve the same status, even though we might not agree with him? As a free, "non-illegal person" (by the broad definition given by the protesters themselves), he should have been allowed to speak.

There is a way to organize a protest and there is a way in which a group can undermine itself with behavior that does not serve its cause. What on earth was happening at Columbia University this past Thursday? People with one point of view brought a group to speak at their University. All were welcome to attend. It was a public forum. While I don't agree with the ideas of the Minute Men, or think that their tactics or intentions are very American, it is only my opinion. At such an open forum, people with other viewpoints are brought, and we are free to question them, and to try and change their mind. But how can we engage them in discussion if we don't hear what they have to say? If we want them to listen to our argument, then we should listen to theirs. Columbia University is supposed to attract and admit the best and the brightest students. But what were these students thinking? (Or were they just not thinking?)Organizing a protest is as American as Washington D.C. cherry blossoms in spring. Showing up and making sure that your alternative perspective is represented is totally appropriate. But if we show up at an organized event where an alternative viewpoint is meant to be heard, then it is our civic duty as a citizen of a free society to sit down and listen if we wish to be represented there. If we want to bring a big sign that says "I think so and so and my opinions differ from yours," then I am all for it. Why sit in a group of peers who think the same as we do, and talk about the ills of the world as we agreeably see them? We aren't changing much by doing that. We need to be out mixing with the folks who hold the alternative opinions we see as being so destructive to the happier societies we envision. We need to be there to remind them that they might be wrong, just like they are there to remind us that we might be.

If we act like monkeys and chant something they probably don't understand, if we take their voice away, if we attack them and make them feel unwelcome, yelling and screaming in their faces, they will not listen to us. They will think that we are as crazy as they think we are, and they will think that we are as wrong as they think we are. If we act like we don't know how to act in a free society, by welcoming alternative viewpoints, hearing them out, and presenting our different opinions in a civilized way, then the people who observe us will be forced to consider us uncivilized. They will see us as less than respectable monkeys.

It's no way to get the point across. It is also making the same mistake we so often criticize the Bush Administration for making. It is to act like a child and not talk or listen to people who disagree with us. It is to tell them that they don't have a right to exist. I am reminded of why we are so hated in the Middle East. Our leaders have told people that they are with us or against us. They have told them that their way is wrong. It is this mentality and behavior which is the reason the current US Administration is at war. It is why they think they have a right to torture, to silence, to imprison without trial, and now to try these prisoners without fair representation or disclosure of evidence.

It is liberals who usually defend the oppressed, whose voices are being shut down with violence, whose rights are being violated, whose freedom is at stake. But when liberals act like the very Administration and persons who they criticize, the validity of their arguments is undermined. Their actions and their ideas are devalued in the eyes of those whose minds they need to change, and also to those in the center, who may now veer Right to avoid obnoxious monkeys. Those of us with disagreements, if we think we have a better way and want others to see things differently, would do well to listen to the arguments of those we disagree with; it might tempt them to listen to us. The least we can do is tell them they have a right to think and speak their own truth. If we don't want to give them that right, then we aren't fighting for freedom; and we probably aren't worth listening to.

A