Letters to the Editor:

James Yeh: Still an Idiot

 Again I have problems with James Yeh’s column. This time it is what he said about flag burning (Burn the flag, but watch your back!!! 3/15/00). It’s OK to be against flag burning, it’s even OK to write a column against it. What is not OK, and what could convince me that someone is an idiot, is suggesting that we assault anyone who does burn a flag.

Yeh tells us that [it] is our duty to stop purple-haired freaks from burning flags with “a great big American right hook,” and that this sort of behavior is an acceptable political statement. He is wrong. Flag burning remains constitutional because it does not infringe on anothers rights. Punching does infringe on anothers rights, and hence is not a valid form of political protest.

A valid counter-protest to flag burning is to stand next to the burner or burners and proudly wave a non-combusting flag, and try to draw more support for your show than your dissenting neighbors’. However, the use of a fire extinguisher again is infringing on their constitutional right to burn a flag. Yeh’s further suggestions of using the extinguisher to ‘beat up’ the protesters is more criminal than any harm which can be done to a flag.

He claims, “I’m not trying to incite violence here, I’m just trying to get you all to think for a bit,” but he misses an important point. Who we are, and how we got here, both very much depend on political protest, INCLUDING flag burning. He states [that] we are the best countries in the world. Allow me to remind you all that we are only the best because we are the free-est. We are a country founded on liberty, and revolt against tyranny. The more we are encouraged to give political protesters a right hook, the less American we become. In Beijing, they run over protesters with tanks. We are the best country in the world because we frown on that sort of behavior. We fight for freedom, and encourage political protest.

Here I ask you to recall Yeh’s positions regarding marijuana. He is not an idiot for being opposed to its legalization, only for suggesting that it is every American’s duty to punch those who support marijuana. His consistent insistence on compelling others to physically attack anyone who disagrees with his views leaves me no option but to disregard Yeh as an intellectual, and stand firm on my belief that he is in fact a big idiot.

 Jesse Miller

Mr. Yeh responds:

I knew you’d be back. Just as Superman had Lex Luthor, Holmes had his Moriarty and Maggie has that baby with the one eyebrow, I have you. Since I see that all calls for civility have been ignored, let’s begin, shall we, Mr. Poopie Pants? You speak of infringing rights. As do I. What of my right to protest the treatment of my flag? A gray area, I readily admit, and nothing that we’ll settle here, so let’s go on. You missed the part where I said that I fully expect to be arrested for whatever violent actions I take against people. While it is the duty of the people to defend the symbol of their country, it is also the duty of our police to protect those in harm’s way, and you better be damn sure flag burners are going to be in harm’s way.

As to where we’re from, I think you’ve forgotten a few things. The Revolutionary War, and the events that proceeded it, were quite violent. The Boston Massacre, while tragic, was brought on by violent colonials. The battles of Concord and Bunker Hill were nothing less than an armed insurrection in the eyes of the British colonial government.

Again, you miss my point. I wholeheartedly agree with you that we’re the best country in the world because we’re the country with the most freedom (free-est? And you’re calling ME an idiot?) I’m not calling on the government to impose any laws restricting the right to burn a flag. I’m calling on good Americans to take a stand, to say “I’m not going to take that crap anymore, you goddamn pinko bastard!” and make his feelings known. Then I expect that person to peacefully await someone to bail them out of the slammer. I’m not asking the government to run people over with tanks (what a mess that would be.....) rather, I’m asking the government to do anything to adhere to the Constitution, which is their job. But I’m also asking the private citizen to do their duty. America was built on the initiative of private citizens, and just because we have an overly intrusive government today doesn’t mean private citizens still can’t do the same.

Lee a “misinformed pamphleteer”

 I appreciate the existence of your (generally) well-written, (occasionally) comical, thought provoking publication. The conservative voice on campus is often silenced by, or buried beneath the loud cries of, an aggressive, SCC/Curtin-led left. The forum you provide serves to inform and encourage otherwise timid students to speak up and thus complicates an otherwise monotonic dialogue.

Thus I was disheartened to read Dustin Lee’s paranoid invective aimed at “Leftist Professors,” for it recalled the dangerous language employed by McCarthy and Cohn. Indeed, I can only guess that Mr. Lee was impelled to produce such blatant disinformation out of misdirected nostalgia for the Cold War. He attaches terms like “brainwashed,” “susceptible” and “unsuspecting” to the student body (who knew we were so ignorant, weak, stupid?), “into the minds” of whom “the majority of these professors cram...their political ideologies.” He irresponsibly interchanges the terms “leftist,” “socialist,” “Marxist” and “Democrat” to forward his flimsy conspiracy theory. Immodest and melodramatic, Lee portrays himself as one of the enlightened few who can see beyond the veil of lies.

And what in hell are “Marxist course listings”?! (Perhaps he means the typists, printers, paper manufacturers, and whomever else helps to produce the course listings distribute the wealth evenly amongst themselves.)

I do not question an individual’s right to his or her own opinion. However, I do object to idiocy, as well as your failure to contain it before this issue went to print. As opposed to the often intellectually-engaging writers whom you publish, Lee is nothing more than a misinformed pamphleteer. If the so-called “susceptible” student body absorbed Mr. Lee’s garbage, (they—we—won’t, for we deserve more respect than that) we would have no dialogue at all. Instead we’d perform daily witch-burnings and Autos de fe in Diag. 

Laurence Lowe
RC Senior

Liberals Like Us!

 That was a beautiful article in the review. (4/1, “Humanitarian Work Does Not Always Imply Liberal Guilt”) For once, I actually read something you had written without a pang of liberal irritation. Is there a moderate in conservative’s clothing hiding somewhere inside you?

 Amoreena Gonzales-Ralya

 Good God, we hope not!

-Eds.