While I like that there is opposition to Dick Cheney speaking at BYU comencement, I do not agree with the calls to cancel the speech or find annother, more liberal, speaker.
Why?
It's looking way too much like the controversy 3 years ago at UVSC.
There has been lots of discussuion on the Mormons for Obama listserv about this. Some of the comments disturb me in their similarity to comments from 2004.
And that scares me.
-Bob
3 comments:
I agree with you, Bob. Let him come give his patented standard hateful canned speech. I'm hoping it whips up all those young college Republicans at BYU to march down to the Provo Armed Forces Recruiting Center and enlist. Maybe enough will do so to raise Utah from #47 in enlistment rate to #46?
I hope students at BYU can show a little more respect than the people at UVSC did to Michael Moore. Disagree if you want, but why in the world would someone go listen to a speaker just to heckle them?
My time is more important to me than that...
This one isn't that clear to me. I agree that much of the discourse in the Moore/Hannity brouhaha of recent past was neither very enlightened nor very helpful. And I totally agree with you that a lot of the same has "churned" up from this controversy.
But I'm hoping that some people can draw a distinction between those that would silence the opposition and those that are simply speaking out in support of laudable propositions.
I wrote on my "Mormons for Peace" (http://www.mormonsforpeace.com)blog today that "I support BYU and its administration" (and therefore the visit itself) but can't support Cheney's policies. I think it's great that he's coming because it's giving us a reason for dialog. I'm hoping that we don't squander the good opportunities that are presented by such a visit.
I have repeatedly called for not messing up graduation day for all the people whose fault the invitation is not. Maybe it can be a lesson in civil discourse for many of us.
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