disagreement arise within their own
carefully cultivated bubble world
they thus lash out with surprising

   
   

_ What I did not expect, we.
was just how threatening some
_ students (or perhaps just one really
_ dedicated one) would find our gall to
even dare discuss this touchy matter
in the first place. —
Inthe last few weeks I have :
| seen copies of the issue pulled
_ from stands or buried under piles
__ of old issues in an effort to keep the
_ offending cover hidden. I’ve received
vandalized copies of the cover in my
office mailbox, and seen the issue
mysteriously disappear from our
office bulletin board display. Clearly,
someone is ticked off.
Student activists are frequently -

vehemence and anger.

 
 
 
 
     
   

  

 
 

  
 
    
      
  
  

alive and well to this day.

When I decided to run a front-page story
on the abortion debate three weeks ago,

 
 

    

    

 

When I was writing for this
paper back in 2003, during the run-

_ up to the Iraq war, angry leftists
_ frequently wrote in and declared that
my right-wing defenses of President
Bush did not deserve to be published,
ipso facto, in a college paper. Though
on a much smaller scale, this recent
abortion issue brouhaha seems to
indicate that same spirit of ultra-
defensive liberal censorship is still

A lot of what is published in
the Other Press \ do not personally
agree with, but I publish it anyway.

March 3, 2008

side” to feel unthreatened by these
sorts of aggressive ideological
counteroffensives. Indeed, I
welcome them. Exposure to contrary
perspectives should strengthen
your own philosophy, and make it
more developed and sophisticated.
Confronting new and challenging
strong counter-arguments offers
a chance for personal growth and
maturity in the proudest traditions of
western thought.

So, to whoever has been
vandalizing our abortion issue, I
ask you, please have some faith
in your own cause. If your case is
just, it will be able to survive the
democratic battlefield of open debate
and free speech on it own merits,

    

I obviously expected the debidon to on the left of the political spectrum, I find profanity abhorrent, but I’ve without necessitating the destruction
be provocative. In an effort to increase and as a conservative, I’ve long run plenty of swear-filled articles, or suppression of alternative
readership I have in fact been deliberately learned to make peace with this fact and even swear-filled headlines perspectives.
trying to create fairly provocative or and accept my own marginalized (there’s one in this issue, in fact). Just causes do not need the rules
attention-grabbing covers as of late, and status. The left-wing point of view I’m an uptight puritan, yet I gladly rigged in their favor.
judging from the increased pickup on thrives in campus communities encourage the raunchy “Dr. Sex” to
campus, the effort s e ayia 00 be working. that subsidize vos perspectives at appear — a es despite

: _ every turn, with women’s centers, = myown in two .
bee: — e ~ oe = a _ advocacy committees, queer clubs weeks ago I ran Garth McLennan’s JJ ee Stoush

and the rest, yet many leftists h:
become so comfortable with this
near-total ideological control that a
they’ ve forgotten how to debate in _
the first place. When strong voices of

   

Story.

 
 
 
  

  

it, and in last bears issue we published

neo-atheist feature about Google
being society’s “new God” as a cover

I have enough faith in my
own beliefs, and the merit of “my

Editor in Chief of the Other Press

 

 

Dear Garth McLennan,

Just to prove that somebody actually does read the
Other Press | formed the irresistible urge to respond
to your opinion, “Judge’s Ruling on Pot Bust a
Disgrace” [February 18 issue] while having a bite
to eat at the Douglas College cafeteria and reading
the Opinions. I was on a break from the courthouse,
you know, the one next to your school. Justice Bruce
is there sometimes too. Maybe sometime between
practices and games you could drop by.

I realize you write for a student paper, but do
you actually intend to sound like some self-inflated
fuzzy cheeked loudmouth who doesn’t know any
better? That still doesn’t excuse you for prattling
away atsuch offensive idiotic nonsense. Clearly
you merely read the newspaper article in the
Sun or Province which hadreported on the
Cao decision (FYI, Justice Bruce would never have
“read in her statement” anything. Judges don’t give
“statements”) If you had carefully read Justice
Bruce’sreasons for judgmentperhaps you
would have had something useful to say, based on an
intelligent grasp of the fundamental issues... or not.

But then for you to insinuate that the judge was
bribed, that goes way beyond any journalistic license
to provoke, now you have crudely insulted someone
who has been involved in hundreds of these matters,

 

 

Clueless sports editor should stick to sports

and whom through years of extremely hard wor

has earned her position. You think maybe she jus
might know a thing or two about the law? About th

police, criminals, “scum of the earth” as you put it?
And what about you? Think of it this way, each day o
trial is like a final exam, each case like a semeste
score. So show some respect, at least like you woul

a really good volleyball player or something.

By the way, I know you must be ignorant o
the restriction against judges (who cannot givd
“statements”’) in so far as they are not able to respond
publicly to moronic attacks such as yours, so I have
taken it upon myself to defend this judge. If she were
able, probably she would yet decline to do so, sinc
you could be regarded as a mere dabbler. But me
I’m not as gifted. So. Until you earn your voice in
these areas, shut the puck up. Or just talk basketball
or running shoes.

Michael J. Ritzker,
Barrister