Posted on 05/06/2005 5:07:35 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952
EDITORIAL BOARD
Friday, May 06, 2005
Conservative author and gadfly Ann Coulter must have been delighted by the protesters who disrupted her talk at the University of Texas Tuesday night. It added to the sensationalism she thrives on.
Coulter expects to provoke controversy when she speaks at a university. The $30,000 she earned for her appearance at the LBJ Library auditorium makes enduring some heckling and rudeness worthwhile. Plus, she gathered a few anecdotes for her next best-selling book and can point once again to the intolerance of the anti-free speech left.
But what is good for Coulter and her right-wing screeds is bad for the university, which has seen this kind of thing before. Whether it's Henry Kissinger, Ward Connerly or Coulter, a coterie of radical students and professors insist on sabotaging speakers whose views they oppose.
Worse for UT, the disruptions reported in the Daily Texan, the student newspaper, were particularly puerile. Not just rude and obnoxious, but also silly, stupid and sexually suggestive. Sophomore Ajai Raj, whose vulgarity at the speech got him arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, is hardly a First Amendment martyr.
As Daily Texan columnist James Burnham wrote, Raj's behavior was "inappropriate, uncalled for and entirely pointless."
It's no surprise that students would demonstrate, but the childish level of the protesters — imitating flatulence, flipping the bird and such — is astonishingly base for the state's flagship university. You'd think the top 10 percent could do better.
Coulter is obnoxious, so much so that it's doubtful she believes even half of what she says and writes. But her provocative discourse has made her rich, and the protests, like the absurdity at UT, only add to her bank account.
The antidote for hate speech is truth, not more hate speech. Students at a top university should have learned that by now.
Besides being a decent-looking blonde who likes to wear skimpy clothing?
To liberals, being "rich" is nearly as bad as being conservative.
I just saw William Krystol at DeSales University, and it was free. He said the next day he was speaking at Harvard Law School. (Krystol recently had a pie thrown at him at another university.)
To liberals, being "rich" is nearly as bad as being conservative.
Seems like that the liberals were out in force to see the impeached slick willie at his booksigning. Over 1,000 reportedly were there, and some got in line at midnight. I'd bet UT and the libs here would love to see that maggot and pay the $150K to see him give a speech.
" She said that the problem was the kids in schools today put two sentences together to facts, so they call names."
What?
Sometimes private parties fund speakers.
It is also a way to "launder" money, just like books.
"Speakers are paid what the market will bear. It's called supply and demand (quaint concept)..."
Yes, I understand market economics, I support and advocate market economics, I have even TAUGHT market economics. If hosting Ann brought in more money than it cost then it makes sense but University lectures are not profit making operations. If they charged $10 a ticket they would have to bring in 3000 people to break even. There were only a few hundred at the meeting. Sometimes the value people put on things gets out of whack, like the tulip mania in Holland many years ago. As much as I like Ann, imo it's crazy to pay that kind of money to entertain or inform a few hundred people.
BTW Nuclhead, if you think I am a socialist troll try reading some of my posts.
But to show how odd and disconnected his question was, remember that the liberals have praised the U.S. Supreme Court in its ruling in Lawrence V. Texas. The ruling established the right for gays to have the "dignity" of anal sex in privacy. One would assume therefore that if it applies to gays in the privacy of their own homes, then it should also apply to heterosexuals, and as such, it should not be an issue. Now in Raj's fevered mind he was trying to make a point, however obscure and looney.
I think though that Ann may have missed the opportunity for one of those retorts which reverberate through the decades, and it could have gone like this:
Raj: "What about all those conservative men who go home and ____ their wife in the ____?"
Ann: "And is that what YOUR husband does to you?"
You're in the ballpark I think Bubba gets around $200,000-210,000 a pop.
Sorry about that.
My kids were yelling at me for socks when I typed that.
I meant to say that she said liberal students today can't put two facts together to form a lucid argument, or some such, so the left just calls names.
Ann: "And you are the representative poster child of such a union?"
a DU posting today has a link to the moron Ajai Raj's response to the Daily Texan column. The guy is REALLY a Horse's A**. But in typical lib he really believes free speech only applies to the left. Naturally all the DU posters agree with him and he is their big hero of the moment. I did not see one posting saying anything like; "wait a minute, would we approve of someone screaming and interrupting a speech by a liberal speaker".
Just like agreeing with X42, the impeached. "It depends what the meaning of is is." That really says a lot of who their heroes [ward churchill, george $orry@$$, etc.] actually are and what they stand for in life.
I did not see one posting saying anything like; "wait a minute, would we approve of someone screaming and interrupting a speech by a liberal speaker".
Just let them keep doing what they are and let everyone see them as fools.
You should be her speech writer.
Leni
If 30K is what Ann is charging and the schools are paying it then that is what the market will bear. I hope she can get 50K or better. If you are one of the economists who taught me in assorted universities, you are a Keynesian and therefore a fool. I have read some of your posts, and frankly, I was amazed at what you wrote today. Hopefully, you are just having a bad day.
I have made commensurate money for about the same amount of work (and time) in the past, and considering what I'm making right now I don't consider it obscene at all. I wish everyone who earns it could make that kind of money. What really p----d me off was paying the taxes on it. Rather than being envious for what my friends, peers, and political brethren make I am rather happy for them!
keep austin stupid + on the democrat plantation.
(/s)
one young woman on klbj this morning gushed,
i love him and he should be president for life.
Um... When has Ann ever engaged in "hate speech"?
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