CCLEFT Responds to Accusations
Ian Leue
Letter to the Editor
Editor:
I'd like to reply to the various OP/EDs, letters to the Editor, and the cover article for this week's (last week's by now) Voice concerning the Daniel J Flynn event. First off, I think we need a definition of terms, which many people have already recognized: As Daniel Flynn pointed out at the beginning of his speech, liberals are different from leftists. Liberals are the political group making up the majority of the campus, leftists are a minority group on campus. I mention this specifically for two reasons. The first is that many people have been using liberal and leftist interchangeably. Specifically of note is a letter from the College Republicans calling the CCLEFT a "group that currently claims to represent campus liberals." The CCLEFT claims no such thing. We are a nonpartisan leftist group on campus. Its really as plain as that. We do not claim to represent all leftists, and we certainly do not claim to represent all liberals. The second reason I draw the distinction between leftists and liberals is that I hear a lot of ridicule towards the protest of Daniel Flynn specifically because the College Republicans are considered a minority on campus. One writer seemed to condemn the protest because the Republicans' views don't "fall in line with what is the perceived norm on this campus." I would argue that the opinions of leftists like myself are even less of the "perceived norm," as demonstrated by the violent backlash when we attempted to say our piece last Monday. I know many Democrats and many liberals felt misrepresented by the actions of leftists and CCLEFT, and to them I say start a Democrats group, a liberals group, a non-confrontational leftists group, or what ever group you feel represents you. But please, don't say that what we do reflects poorly on you. Our actions reflect upon ourselves and ourselves alone.
With that, I move on to my next point. Many people dislike the way that CCLEFT conducted its protest, accusing us of being childish. Like Yoni Freeman, I recognize that many CCLEFT members and non-CCLEFT leftists shouted during the speech. This is indeed childish. However, calling people names (such as Daniel Flynn did) is also childish, as is shouting back (as many of the republicans did). So lets just say that everybody was childish and stop bickering about who was the most childish, eh?
Understand that I write as an individual. CCLEFT harbors a wide range of opinions and beliefs, and I can't speak for everybody. However, I do feel confident in saying that CCLEFT is happy that Daniel Flynn got a chance to exercise his first amendment right to say things offensive to us, and that we got a chance to exercise our first amendment right to do things that were offensive to him. As much as you may hate us for it, we have just as much right to protest as he has right to speak.
Ian Leue '07
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