Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Columbia University is under fire for inviting Iranian president Ahmadinejad to speak. Many people and organizations are protesting the appearance of the leader of a country Bush has called part of the axis of evil. Ahmadinejad is accused of building nuclear weapons, aiding terrorists, sending weapons of Iraq and denying the reality of the Holocaust. Despite the protest, President Lee Bollinger of Columbia is keeping the invitation.

At the University of California former Harvard President Lawrence Summers was supposed to speak at a Reagents' meeting. Summers lost his job because of his comments that there maybe biological difference that explain the lack of women in physical sciences. As a result of some protests, particularly from the UC Davis campus, that invitation was rescinded.

In my view both should be allowed to speak. I don't think that students or faculty learn much if they just listen to people with the same views as them. Let Ahmadinejad stand up there and take questions about his views. I doubt that he will act like a neo-nazi and start shouting death to America and Israel. And if he does it will only make him look like an idiot to the whole world. By not allowing him to speak you just make a ideological martyr of him. By listening to your enemy you may learn something that will be helpful later. We should not be afraid of showing the freedoms we have in this country. Hurray to Bollinger for taking his stand.

A big boo to the UC Regents. They caved in to political pressure. The whole Summers incidence at Harvard shows that there is only academic freedom for the politically correct. Summers offered a theory which has NEVER been proven right or wrong. But the liberal nazis would not engage in rational discussion. This is like the ancient times where people thought that the sun revolved around the earth. Even though it was never proven, anyone who disagrees with that was attacked. Summers may well be wrong but he can't even bring that up for discussion? How many times in history have someone bring up a theory that was wrong? He was not going to the UC to discuss this topic anyway. The UC Regents are bunch of wimps to cave in.

It is interesting that the liberals would be more likely to back Columbia than conservatives. As a result Columbia can use academic freedom to allow Ahmadinejad to speak. But since liberals run the UC any politically incorrect views are scorned. In this case a person who had a politically incorrect view is not even allowed to speak on another topic! So to the liberals the former President of Harvard is a more controversal and dangerous speaker than someone who had called for the destruction of Israel and may very well have helped terrorists against the U.S. You have to wonder what are they teaching on our campuses today. Or what is it that they are smoking!