It might be slightly funny if

1. the target was truly vile, loathesome, unredeemable and wholly deserving - Ann Coulter, Mark Penn, the lead singer from Creed, Ben Stein, Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, for example.

2. these pie-throwing idiots would actually hit someone square in the face instead of the glancing blows off the shoulder or missing altogether. Honestly, don't they ever even practice?

They should be arrested pure and simple.

I won't call it horrifying though. Horrifying is watching someone get hit by a car and knowing there is nothing you can do about it. 15 years afterwards the images are still seared into my brain (and amazingly the girl, who was on a bike, bounced off the hood and walked away, albeit bruised and shaken)

Crude perhaps, but clearly effective according to this study:

www.theonion.com/.../study_finds_link_between_being

I'm with blackton. If you note Friedman's body language, he was clearly terrified and expected the worst. Two people with stuff in their hands, cornering him? Not funny. Yippie politics at their worst.

It's revealing, indeed, that whenever at a university anyone is shouted down, beat up, pushed off the stage, or prevented somehow from speaking, it is always by people of the Left.

Does anybody want to explain this?  Whatever happened to good old Right Wing Brownshirts?  In America, it has been clear that almost all the political thugs are of the Left.

'splains a lot.

And, p.s., why have these pie morons not been publicly identified, ejected from Brown, and held up for scorn by the "university" as they ought to be.

Nothing "universal" about these supposedly elite colleges anymore.

Blackton -

I once saw a small dog get hit by a car while the family watched.... I know exactly what you're saying...

I agree. It's assault. It's a mean-spirited, infantile, inarticulate way to make a point. And not funny. Even against Ann Coulter.

I've never understood the rage for protesting the presence of a speaker. Jesus, let the person just say what they want and argue later. Are your ears so precious that they cannot be tainted with an idea you don't endorse?

Nothing better illustrates the difference between real journalists and blogblatherers than setting side by side Yglesias's and Chait's comments on this.

What a vile little creep Yglesias is.

And what a pity that real writers who actually report, and investigate, and revise and vet and fact-check and, you know, WORK at getting something worthy of being printed and read for more than just a minute or two feel the need to treat Yglesias as a peer.

"And, p.s., why have these pie morons not been publicly identified, ejected from Brown, and held up for scorn by the "university" as they ought to be."

Huffington reports that no one involved (I assume that means Friedman) want to press charges.

Also, compare the intelligent and civil comments on this thread with the juvenile and hate-filled comments on Yglesias's blog. Another reason to support real journalists at places like TNR.

ChanRobt said:

"It's revealing, indeed, that whenever at a university anyone is shouted down, beat up, pushed off the stage, or prevented somehow from speaking, it is always by people of the Left."

Yeah, it's ALWAYS by people of the left.  (eyes rolling)

It wasn't quite clear to me why Friedman was a target.  Anyone know?  Because he invented globalization or what?

Which one of the democratic candidates do you think those stooges are voting for, eh folks?

irony - read the blogblatherer-thread's comments. A particular piece of work is the poster "soulite". Of course, his stuff is thin gruel, utterly ordinary fare in Yglesias-world, but it gives you a glimpse into the mentality that produces Yglesias and his blog.

Sure, it's kind of humiliating, though the fact that one is worth of a pie bestows a certain cachet and ,frankly, since cream pies can be delicious, not altogether repellant.  I've I were a going to toss one, I'd be thoughtful enough to make it a tasty one, and if I were the target, I'd make the most of the unexpected snack.

Pies are today's affluent society's rotten tomatoes.  They've been tossing them since the Greeks.  Chait's finding this "absolutely horrifying" betrays his effete, schoolmarm sensibility.  

propjoe, it's one thing for Friedman choosing not to press criminal charges. But student discipline should not depend on the victim's consent. This is a form of physical intimidation, possibly the second-worst sin in an academic environment after falsification and plagiarizing. Expulsion might be too severe a punishment, but the integrity of the university would seem to demand some sanction against the perpetrators.

Also, pie-throwing is a stupid cliche. Organizing a thousand third-world peasants simultaneously mailing one-pound boxes of dirt to Friedman's office, I would respect a prank like that. Show a little creativity, kids.

People certainly have been behaving like boorish asses "since the Greeks," but citing antiquity hardly justifies poor behavior. Why not wait until the Q&A and actually ask the guy some hard questions? I think the Greeks went in for that kind of thing too.

Although jm_r and I have agreed on nothing that I can remotely remember, I have to say that I'm pretty much where he is on this.  If students stick to throwing pies, I'd say western civilization will survive the ordeal.

My problem with pie throwing is that, in most cases, only one pie is thrown, and that therefore only one person can throw the pie and only one person (typically) is the target. Ironically (as the above comments prove), the thrower cannot help but hit himself.

True food fights, however, are usually fun, inherently egalitarian, can be cathartic, and serve to contrast nicely with the remainder of the moment's zeitgeist, which is often overly serious and unjustifiably highfalutin.

In my view human beings are a lot sillier than we let on. For one thing, we have silly bodies, which is why most of us hide behind clothes every chance we get.  We want to be pretty and for a brief moment, we are. Then we get a birth certificate and leave the maternity ward. Thereafter, we stare at our reflections in mirrors through a haze of vanity, trepidation, arrogance, and a handful of other seedy, childish emotions. A nice faceful of guacamole or banana cream dripping from our nose like a Greenland glacier is a good reminder of our truer nature.

Two people who throw food at each other until both have succeeded in reaching their targets a few times have little pride to stand on, and thus anger dissipates rather quickly at that point, in my experience.  I cannot argue the superiority of my position when I look like a salad; it just doesn't work. And it begs the question: why was I arguing the superiority of my position when I *didn't* look like a salad?

Every loving family should keep a few of those old-fashioned seltzer bottles lying around, in case one or the other starts getting too deep, or too possessive, or too insecure, or too whiney, or too argumentative, or what not. Hypothesis: well-stocked seltzer bottles will reduce divorce rates more effectively than more expensive, traditional couples therapy. (Sex will be better, too.)

I haven't met Tom Friedman and know nothing about him beyond what of his I've read, but he seems like a bright, sincere, thoughtful man. I certainly would not throw, say, a few cups of cottage cheese at him unless he possessed a proximate plateful of, say, apple sauce or yogurt, armed and at the ready.

I can think of a few fellow Planksters who would profit from a faceful of chilled split-pea soup. As for TNR staffers, imagine your favorites (or not so favorites) sporting something in a nice melted cheese, perhaps.

Goddess knows what drips from williamyard at this moment in your imagination.

Horrifying is watching TNR and pundits like Friedman go along with Bush's invasion of Iraq.  Compared to that, a pie is hardly worth mentioning.

To be clear...

Though I condemn such hooliganism, the pie was well deserved. A few more would actually be just, if not entirely civil.

Neil

Not quite, jm. Odds are that the pie will be filled with a noxious substance-- piss seems to be preferred, in Europe anyway. Also, it legitimizes throwing other objects, some of which may appear soft but can actually do serious damage. Joschka Fischer had his eardrum perforated IIRC, after being hit by a balloon filled with paint by leftist protestors of NATO's air campaign against the serbs in 1999.

propositionjoe writes, "...Huffington reports that no one involved (I assume that means Friedman) want to press charges."

Joe, it doesn't matter what Friedman wants or does.  This is and ought to be a matter for Brown to deal with.  I assume they are students.  If they're not, then there must be trespassing, or vandalism or something.

Something worse happened at Columbia not long ago.  A speaker was assaulted by student thugs, pulled off the stage, stopped from speaking.  As far as I know, Columbia did not a thing about this.

It is craven and despicable.  A university of all institutions should be about free speech.

They are.  But only if it is of the Left.

But, maybe next time I hear that Mr. Ayers is speaking somewhere, I'll cream pie him.  I guarantee you, I'll be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

hellx, roll your eyes right out of their sockets.  It IS ALWAYS thugs of the Left who commit these outrages on campus.  And I've yet to hear of punishment or prosecution.

Name me a campus incident where a Leftist was stopped from speaking by someone of the Right.  

You'll have to go back to Nazi Germany to find an example.  And, in a certain sense, Nazis were Leftists anyway.  It stands for "National Socialist" remember.

irony, in the paper they threw down on stage, Friedman was charged with supporting global capitalism and saying that technology solved problems.  

irony, obviously a cream pie never killed anybody.

It is the symbolism, and the intent that is appalling.  These guys were trying to get Friedman to go away and not speak.  That' unacceptable anywhere in a democracy.  But, especially in a university.

Meanwhile, the Columbia incident was far worse.  There was physical attack involved, dragging speakers offstage, and preventing them from speaking.

No actions were taken by the university.  No scandal ensured.  No names were revealed and no one was expelled or punished at all.

But, then, Columbia has a history of craven behavior going back to '68 when they allowed themselves to be overrun by creeps and did little or nothing about it.

Chan,

I wasn't justifying the pie affair by noting Friedman's response--just putting it out there. Apparently Brown plans to bring the offenders before some review board that will then decide their fate. I think they should be forced to read the collected works of David Horowitz as punishment, 8th Amendment be damned.

Anybody want a slice of liberal fascism?  

I can differnentiate my conservative friends from my liberal ones because the liberals tend to believe in silencing objectionable politics via violence.

Chan, I hope you realize that saying Nazis were leftists because they had the word "socialist" in their party name is exactly as true as saying that East Germany was a democracy because its name was the German Democratic Republic.

As to rightwing people using physical intimidation to shut up their opponents, you don't have to go back to Nazi Germany. Try Mississippi in 1964 -- ask Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner how nonexistent or trivial rightwing hoodlumism was. Not to minimize the problem on the left, particularly on campuses, but we shouldn't pretend that the right doesn't have its own problem with violent intolerance. The difference being that lefties are more numerous and use pies; righties are less numerous and use bullets and bombs.

re:  Rhubarb

I agree with much of what you said, but I disagree with the difference.  Actors in a democracy resort to violence when words do not work.  This is even more true when there is a moral element;  not only could the anti-civil rights thugs in the 1960s not explain their opinion convincingly via words, but they were morally outraged by the idea of black enfranchisement.  I think, in a democracy, folks who can't convince via words and are morally outraged will turn to violence or intimidation.  That's why we almost always see conservative speakers getting intimidated on college campuses, which have younger populations.  These younger populations lack life experience that would help them back up their ideas with words, and have moral outrage in spades.  So they pie.  Or they slash tires.  Or they key cars.  Park a car on a college campus with a Bush sticker and see how long your paint job lasts.

Anyway, I think it's safe to say that college Republicans don't believe in throwing pies at Al Sharpton, whereas college Democrats think not enough pies have been thrown at Ann Coulter.  And we Democrats should find that to be troubling.  Democracy works when there is discource and fails when the mob rules.

Campus conservatives can be every bit as noxious, just less numerous. And of course most liberals (and most conservatives) don't engage in that sort of behavior. Making one side or another into a monolithic "Left" or "Right" is pretty damn silly. As is pie throwing, as is being "horrified" at pie throwing.

I understood you, propositionjoe, I'm on your side.

I was simply saying that what Friedman cares to do is totally irrelevant.  The university needs to stand unambiguously for free speech, unintimidated free speech.  And not take a "boys will be boys" attitude.

Which, unfortunately, my good friend, irony seems to be doing.  

Come on, irony.  I know you have some tolerance for old leftover hippie bombers.  But, surely, you should be less sanguine about neo-Brownshirts.  Even if their weapons are only pies.  And even if they support Lefty causes.

Maybe I'm just more outraged by the crap pulled by college lefties because I was one of 'em - and it's okay for the other side to pull crap, but not okay for my side to do it.  Then again, I've also never seen much college conservative shenanigans.  We've got a fire-and-brimstone street preacher (who college lefties try to shout down) and we've got . . . well, that's all we've got.  Sometimes the College Republicans try to pull some snarky prank to stick a finger in the eye of some lefty orthodoxy.  It's generally amusing and the lefties generally try to shout them down.  

Rhub, the Nazis used Left ideals to attract people to their cause.  That a lot of those so attracted stayed with the Nazis, shows you that the Left may not be so far away in its sensibilities from them.

Did not the Nazis and the Soviets have an alliance?  And was not Stalin shocked when he was double-crossed?

We allied with the Soviets against the Germans in the heat of a war.  But, I don't think we had too many illusions about a common cause that went anywhere beyond a common enemy.  

Pie throwing is the exception to that rule.

Rhubarbs writes, "...you don't have to go back to Nazi Germany. Try Mississippi in 1964 -- ask Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner how nonexistent or trivial rightwing hoodlumism was."

What a totally ludicrous analogy, Rhub.  There is also an American Nazi Party.  Is that part and parcel of the Right in America?

The people who killed the civil rights works were vicious bigots.  No one on the legitimate Right ever claimed them or defended them.  And, quite the opposite, of course condemned them for the murderers they were.

The contemporary campus Brown Shirts, the people who proscribe and dictate speech, the people who remove all the newspapers from campus newsstands when they disagree with an article-- these people are not only of the Left, they are tolerated or defended by the Left.

Just as irony (whom I like) defended or at least downplayed the offense of these most recent thugs.

The American campuses are overwhelmingly Left.  The students committing these outrages against free speech-- many of which go far beyond pies-- are exclusively of the Left.  And the people tolerating, not punishing, not condemning them must either be of the Left or the most insipid cowards imaginable.

Count, I'm hardly saying that every Leftist or LIberal is a thug.

What I'm saying is that universities and the Left tolerates thuggery against speech they don't agree with.  I'm saying that the Left does not protect free speech on its campuses, as it most assuredly should and with great vigor.

I resent people who claim they are "liberal"  now often a flagrant misuse of an honorable word, but don't defend fundamental liberal causes.  Like the freedom of ideas to be discussed openly, and without intimidation.  No matter how deeply you might resent said ideas.

Whatever happened to "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."?

When I was a kid, I used to hear that quoted many times.  It seemed to have disappeared from our culture, oh, around 1968.

Oh, for crying out loud, these are pies!  In an age where protest is manifest by strapping bombs to children, pies are imminently civilized.  OK, immature or counterporductive or bad taste, but some of the adjectives used here -- thugs, criminals, horrifying, etc...violence???  C'mon, Girls, get real.

Look, when my guy gets pied, I'm indignant, too -- as usual, it depends on whose ox is being gored -- but it's a matter of degree, and the degree of sanctimony and touchiness on display here is ultra-silly..

Tep, there's a line of overdoing that should have been learned out of adolescence.  Pies are one thing, what you describe is something else.  It's the difference between principled pranksters and hooligans.

They're sad morons, but then again most students are.

Well spotted Jonathan, it's often difficult in today's informal world to know where to draw the line. Even if it was Kissinger (who should be in a court of law), respect needs to earned as well as given.

Get off your horse Chan and give the poor animal a drink of water. They're students, kids - hardly an all encompassing theory on the Left.

How about this, to cut to the chase, as they say...

you throw a pie at me, I kick the shit outta you...

Problem Solved.  Next....

IggyPop, jm, these guys didn't just pie Friedman.  They left a dumbass manifesto about their justification for doing same.  They were trying to disrupt his speech, to humiliate him.  

I wish Friedman had had the balls to knock at least on of the son-of-a-bitches on his ass.  Followed, perhaps, by a hearty kick in the head.  All in the spirit of fun, of course.

If this were not part of a pattern on campuses for decades; if these disruptions were not always coming from the Left and aimed at people assumed to be on the Right (Friedman, for God sakes?) then I could be as bemused as you.

But, this is more than that and you guys all know damn well it is.

jaunty, you and I are in complete accord for once.  Good man.  

Didn't Friedman say something about sometimes you need to hit someone real hard to get their attention (but with bombs not pies). Seems like he was a victim of his own advice.

Nice move, Chan, but about as original as an undergrad throwing a "pie" on campus. When a political conservative does violence, the right always throw up their hands to their cheeks and decries the extremists as not really part of, as you say, "the legitimate right."

Well, OK then. The stupid kids who throw pies on campus, they're not part of the legitimate left either.

Ergo, there is no such thing as liberal intimidation on campus.

Alternately, one could choose to live in the real world and face up to the facts that there are troubling extremists on both sides. They are more numerous, but less physically dangerous on the left. They are far less numerous, but more lethal, on the right. That's just a fact. I mean, compare the anti-military idiots on the left with the anti-abortion activists on the right. Protesters in Berkeley attempt to intimidate kids going to the USMC recruitment office, but don't actually hurt anyone. Meanwhile, every couple of years, someone on the right murders an abortion-providing doctor. Both are real, both are problems, and both sides need to address the problem of the extremists in their midst who put the gun (or the pie) into politics.

Look, I like ripping into Thomas Friedman as much as the next blogger -- but I can't agree with Matt Yglesias that the following video is "funny": This is the kind of thing that accomplishes the following: A) It makes some people who dislike Friedman

Chan, the left who coöpted liberalism in 1968 remind me of the 17h-century polemicists who used to call each other atheists.  It's not that the alleged "atheists" didn't believe in God, but that they didn't believe in *my* god.  Today, you're liberal as long as you're *my* liberal.

O'Channy...

hee, hee, these brainy boys didn't learn the basics in them there elite colleges...

O'Channy,

I just watched the link on Yglesias' blog. I can tell you, without a doubt, that if that dude raced up to me like that, my visceral reaction, based upon my chiascuro and ill spent youth, would have been to Kermit Washington-Rudy Tomjanovich the guy. Without an f-ing doubt. And I would have chased his ass, along with his boyfriend until I rubbed that green shit all over his broken face.

No brag, just fact...

Chan, I was more startled that I agreed with jm_rice.  I'm still dazed from that.  Just give me a moment, I'll be alright!  But -- Ithere's a fine line between not approving of something and declaring that that thing is the thin end of the wedge and we're all heading to hell in a hand-basket.

I think also there's a difference between whatever nonsense went on a Brown and incidents where, say, a pro-Israeli speaker was physically prevented from speaking, or where a bomb threat closed a meeting.  There's a good Anglo-Saxon tradition around pies, and they seem to be consciously a way of getting away from real violence in politics.  Other people want to re-introduce violence and intimidation.

A wildly disconnected point:

I'm reading George Packer's "Blood of the Liberals" at the moment, a kind of intense autobiography/history about his grandfather (populist Democratic congressmen George Huddleston from Alabama) and his father (Herbert Packer, a leftish law professor at Stanford who ended up fightiing the student uprisings in 1968).  One interesting thing that Packer says is that the Jewish faculty members (incl. his father) were a lot more worried by the ostensible embrace of the irrational on the part of students than the Anglo faculty were.

Packer says, relating a moment where his father was trying to give solace to a colleague whose resignation was being demanded by the students:  It was as if the Jews were suddenly outsiders who didn't understand that a university is a place where people get along, as opposed to a site of fragile intellectual freedom.

Rhubarbs, have you twice repeated now that the Right is or was of a piece with the criminals who murdered the Freedom Riders?  You're pretty desperate for arguments if that's the case.

Rhubarb writes, "...The stupid kids who throw pies on campus, they're not part of the legitimate left either...

Ergo, there is no such thing as liberal intimidation on campus."

The administrations and faculties of universities, which are overwhelmingly Left, according to all surveys, do not condemn the various attempts to scotch free speech on campus.  They do not lift their hands to stop it.  they do not make it clear that such behavior is unacceptable.

And, with their "hate speech" proscriptions, and such incidents as the driving off of Summers for an un-p.c. slip of the tongue, the Left tries to prevent free speech on campus, except by those they agree with.

jaunty, I know you would have chased those assholes down.  I only wish Friedman had your street training.  It was pitiful to watch him lamely wiping the filling off his face as if it were blood.

irony, very interesting insights from "Blood of the Liberals".

But, one thing in your passage really jumped out at me:  "...Packer...relating a moment where his father was trying to give solace to a colleague whose resignation was being demanded by the students..."

Why the hell was any solace required?  Why did anybody give a shit what the students were demanding?  Screw them.  This wimpiness in the face of the demands of moronic 18 year olds is what stupefies me.

But, meanwhile, irony, I get your point about pie throwing as comedic symbology and tradition and all.  I'm not without a sense of nuance or a sense of humor.  (Which I hope is occasionally evident here.)

But, to use a favorite phrase these days, I think you have to look a this incident in context.  The context being a long pattern of intolerance on the part of the academic Left towards speech they don't agree with from what they perceive to be the Right.

Certainly a guy as harmless as Thomas Friedman ought to be able to speak at an Ivy League campus without being assaulted, even if just with a pie.

If they throw those kids out for a year or two and give them time to think about their merry pranks, then there will be some sign that free speech is respected somewhere in the Ivies.

The only thing that's really horrifying is that people fight for an Ivy League education....seems more bush league to me.

rob3liss, you've got a good point.  And if the only reason for college was to get a good undergraduate education, you probably don't have to fork out $50k/year to the Ivies to secure one.

But, that isn't the system.  The Ivy Leagues are every bit as much about buying connections cachet as they are purely about an education.  And, let's face it, a degree from Harvard, Yale, etc is pretty much guaranteed employment.  

If you study law or finance, an Ivy education pretty much guarantees you making $200k/year before you're 25. I assume that Goldman Sachs and the big law firms are paying those salaries because kids who come out of the Ivies do have the goods.  But, I'll let other who actually know confirm that for me.  

In my business (advertising) and Ivy League ed doesn't necessarily deliver much.  

I would say that the corporatization of the movie business and the hiring a lot of Ivies to be executives in that biz have pretty much ruined movies.  All book smart, no street smart, no real life experience.  Equals formulaic movies derived from other movies or from comic characters.

Obviously, a kid with great sensibilities and true intellect could take tremendous advantage of the exposure to some of the truly impressive people teaching some of the Ivy classes.  So, I'm not discounting it all.  

But, I think we've got to be honest and cop to what it's at least very much about (if not entirely) and why parents are paying the big tuitions.

In fairness, I have been recently impressed that Harvard has led the movement to subsidize these tuitions, for the middle class which can't really afford them.  With Harvard's immense endowment, I guess they can cover it without a wince.

Chan's right, the lefties on campus are the thugs throwing pies.  And the right wingers running the federal government are thugs using bombs and guns to destroy entire nations based on lies.  Same thing.

Save us your right wing "outrage".  I am on campus enough to know that there's plenty of right wing intimidation and stupidity as there is on the left.  It's the right that manufactures "outrage" about campus "intimidation". The right wing loves to constantly gin up fake outrage about the "left".  How about some outrage when right wingers bomb abortion clinics or hang nooses on high school campuses to intimidate black school kids?  I don't remember the voice of the conservative movement being so wound up about the noose incident.  Yours is typical right wing victimhood.

When I see lefties as prevalent in the board room as the right is, then I'll say there needs to be more room for the right on college campuses. It's not enough for the wingers in this country to take over the government and business.  They have to dominate it all and cry when they don't.

tnmats, you can name an incident on campus where a Rightist drove a Leftist or a liberal off the stage, shouted one down, or did anything else to obstruct free speech.

The above has been for many years in this country a left wing tactic.  And tolerated by university administrations.  As well as by the faculty.  

If an anti-abortionists murders a doctor or bombs an abortion clinic, that's reprehensible terrorism.  And is condemned as such by Right and Left.

If you believe that abortion is murder, as many sincerely do, then attacking an abortion clinic is the equivalent of John Brown attacking Harpers Ferry.  Which in its day was condemned by many who two years later were marching into battle against the Confederacy.  

But, this is a conflation of issues.  Both the Right and the Left ought to have a common interest in the integrity of universities and protecting universities as centers of free discourse.

Until the radicalized Left took over the universities in the wake of the sixties, this was pretty much the case.  But, now, it clearly is not.  Academia has become a Lefty enclave where contrary opinions are frequently intolerated.  Even when apologized for.  Mr. Summers would be able to testify to that, tnmats.

the academic Left to a great extent, only believes in Democracy for the Left.  And, even then, with conditions.  It is the Left that has the totalitarian impulse.  As history has proven.  

Horrid as Nazi Germany was, its crimes have easily been matched by the Soviet Union and China.  Only their crimes were less visible because they waged war and genocide on their own people.  And it didn't make the news.

CORRECTO:  tnmats, you CAN'T name an incident on campus where a Rightist drove a Leftist or a liberal off the stage, shouted one down, or did anything else to obstruct free speech.

"Certainly a guy as harmless as Thomas Friedman ought to be able to speak at an Ivy League campus without being assaulted, even if just with a pie."

Chan, I have to say, though, that while I agree with that basic tenet, a not especially aged, ill, or disabled adult should perhaps be able to deal with a non-injurious and bascially theatrical action in a public event.

Indeed, Friedman is an experienced reporter who touts his ability to connect with people all over the world -- he must have also had a few tense encounters in his time.  Seems likely, anyhow.

I think what bothers me is Friedman's wussy response to this incident -- I don't mean he should have assaulted anyone but there's wit, polemic, personality to use.  I think he lost a chance to ride out the attack and regain moral authority in the meeting.  But I wasn't there so I don't really know, I'm just speculating.

Wow Chan, I didn't see your post until 5:40pm EDT.  I'm not here all the time as you probably guessed.

Students at UNCG (actually UNC-Greensboro) sponsored a PETA day,People for the Eating of Animals,

and in March.  Several counter protested, the repugs started a scuffle according to the local papers.  The "leftists" kept their distance and were attacked.  The leftists were arrested since they stepped a bit outside a 'free expresssion' area the police designated.

That's one example.  Are there as many as the 'leftists' on campus?  Probably not.  But the 'damage' the leftists cause on campus cannot compare to the damage done by the right wing thugs like LImbaugh, Coulter, Savage, etc.  Not a nice, reasonable one in the bunch but do vast amounts of damage.  And if you're comparing an abortion clinic (last I checked they are legal) to what happened to spark the Civil War then we are in trouble as a republic.  Maybe it's time to dissolve the whole thing?

And I never saw an organized campaign to enforce 'equality' in the board room or in government like I have on college campuses, radio nor TV.  Last I checked there isn't a remote progressive/liberal equivalent of Fox "news" either.

irony, at least we can agree about Friedman's wussy response.  He just stood there looking bewildered and lamely wiping himself off.  

Wish he had jaunty's instincts and had captured and beat up the male half of the duo.  That would have made good press

tnmats, there ought to be free expression on campus.  And no one Left or Right ought ever be physically or otherwise intimidated into shutting up.

What you seemed to describe was a demonstration by the Right, a counter by the Left, and a fight with the counters started by the Right.  If so, the Right was out of line in that instance.  No argument.

As to Limbaugh, Coulter, etc.  They are exercising free speech on radio, through books and columns, and occasionally on TV.

There is plent to counter what they are saying in every medium.  Including the preponderance of the MSM, which puts across a center Left to well Left POV without ever labeling it as opinion.  Which that of Limbaugh and the rest clearly is.

What's your beef?  That thee people say things you find offensive?  I hear things and read things all the time that I find offensive.  That's one of the reasons I post here.  To debate those things and counter those things.

That's the way it's supposed to work.  

The way it is not supposed to work is thugs trying to shut down a presentation by those they disagree with.  Especially on campus.  

And that happens with depressing and excerable regularity on American campuses, almost exclusively aimed by the Left at the Right.

Which you don't really seem to dispute.  You simply counter by yelling LImbaughÇoulter?

On the other hand, it might have showed a lack of self-control.  There's a question of proportion, and while Friedman might have felt good after it, the scene might also have turned very nasty.

But I mean the guy's a wordsmith, right, surely he could have managed a few self-deprecating remarks that got the audience on his side and restored order?

tnmats, maybe you don't know what Harper's Ferry was.  It was a United States Army arsenal in Virginia.  It was attacked in 1859 by armed abolitionists on horseback led by John Brown.  

They saw themselves as fighting a great wrong called slavery.  They were generally seen then and since as zealots pursuing a just cause with terrible means.

ARmy arsenals then, like abortion clinics now, were, to your point, legal.  And so are abortions.  And so in 1859, was slavery.

When an abortion opponent violently attacks an abortion clinic, he is doing a great wrong.  If he injures or kills someone, he ought to be prosecuted and punished for the crime.

At the same time, the anti abortion cause is a cause that millions see as just, whether you agree or not.  It is seen as the killing of human beings at their most helpless stage.  You likely do not agree that they are human beings.  But anti abortionists do.  Hence the passion they feel for their cause.

In 1859, blacks were acknowledge even by slave holders as human beings.  But as lesser human beings.  And therefore, argued they could be enslaved.  They could even point to the existence of slavery as an ancient institution, often referenced in the bible.  Jews, among many peoples, had been slaves.

Abolitionists felt passionately-- and few would now disagree-- that

a) blacks were every much human beings as were the rest of us.   And,

b) that slavery was one of the greatest wrongs and injustices on the planet.  That it was an affront to God.

On these grounds, John Brown felt justified in striking against his own country, U.S. Army troops at Harpers Ferry.

Two years later, we fought the bloodiest war in our history over this issue of slavery.  Half a million died.  

John Brown's actions were, to an extent, ratified.  But, to this day, history has not rehabilitated him.

Abortion is an issue like slavery.  And if the aborted children were visible as the slaves were visible, the issue would be seen much differently.

I doubt that a civil war will ever be fought over abortion.  But, I do believe one day, technology will make it unnecessary.  And it may be looked back upon as a great evil, as a silent holocaust.  And we may ultimately feel great shame that so many millions of children were lost to abortion in the 20th century.

In 1859, there were millions who justified slavery.  In 2008, there are millions who justify abortion.  Maybe neither slavery defenders nor abortion defenders feel entirely right about it in their hearts.  But, they defended both of these unfortunate practices nonetheless.

And that is why, tnmats, I can easily compare an abortion clinic to a slave plantation.  The one is legal now, the other was legal then.  The one is now universally acknowledged as a monstrous wrong.  I maintain that so, someday, will the latter be.

tnmats writes, "Last I checked there isn't a remote progressive/liberal equivalent of Fox "news" either."

Last you checked, tnmats, you weren't looking or listening very carefully.  

CNN is a pretty good Left equivalent to FOX.  Albeit, more subtle.  Which is what makes it more insidious.  With FOX, you are pretty much forewarned of their P.O.V. and biases.  With CNN, you are not.

irony, you're right.

When you're right, you're right.

"CNN is a pretty good Left equivalent to FOX."

Actually, Channy, if you've seen MSNBC lately, they're far more to the left (are FAR more open about it) than CNN could ever be.

Ah, of course  Chan. How could I have mistaken Glen Beck for a rabid right winger?  And Fox represents itself as a news organization?  Um, an editorial organization, sure.  But "fair and balanced">  Give me a break.  And any campus I've been on has free expression.  I've seen more suppression of left-wing thought in the public schools or even outright scientific evidence that counters the right's philosophies.  Evolution anyone?  Or the right's relentless attack on global climate change?

You remind me of why I despise conservatives.  "Liberals" are always the evil ones, conservatives are always put upon by us vicious liberals, conservatives always have the right answer, the evils of the world are due to us liberals.  Oh yeah, we're spineless too at the same time.  I don't mind anyone saying I'm wrong, hell I say I'm wrong all the time.  I get sick of someone always blaming one side and having a massive megaphone lying about it all the time.  I'll take honest debate, but if a liberal tries to have a rational discussion he's eviscerated.  That's why eventually they resort to what I often find disgusting tactics.  Just like the right (the Olympics Bombings and Oklahoma City Bombings come to mind).

Oh and Channy, there is a way around abortion in many cases right now: RU486.  But you this right wing administration has fought it tooth and nail from day one, along with pharmacists refusing to sell it.  Again, who's the one trampling on rights again?

I like conservatives.  I think we need conservatives, if only to prevent liberal-left smugness from taking over my world entirely.  But I wish we could get some conservatives.  They are supposed to be the cautious ones, wanting to proceed with due regard to consequences, to conserve -- to conserve what's good about the past, what social values need nurturing, the balance of life, the natural environment etc.  Conservatives are about restraint, about discipline, about the relationship between wealth and responsibility.  Basically decent folks, with a feeling for stability and the longer view.

I'm sorry but people who want to tear up the script on foreign policy and barge like the Incredible Hulk into a country and political and religious culture about which they know next to nothing, people who think it's perfectly ok if a constitutional republic allows a mini-class of super-rich to earn salaries in the 1000s of % ratio to the average middle-class salary, people who think the job of the government is to stand around shrugging its shoulders as a major city drowns, people who think that an interest in handing on a livable natural environment to our kids and grandkids is a sign either of mental inadequacy or of subversive conspiracy -- no, I'm sorry, these people aren't conservatives.  They are destructive anarchists who make the rest of us pay the price of their inability to see beyond the garden fence of their egoism, and an entire so-called "Republican" party does the job of butler and maid to see that they're happy and nothing appears to disturb them.

Conservatives.  Yes, if you can find any, let me know.

Well Said Irony.  Well said.

I think I could handle some of  those conservatives right now.  What we have now aren't conservatives in what I thought it meant in the past.  I'm tired of all the yelling, all the invectives on both sides.  I'm willing to listen to someone with different viewpoints AS LONG as I'm not denigrated and automatically told my side is the root of all evil (ala Coulter). That is my beef with modern "conservatism".  It quit being conservatism at some point and just became what seems like right wing propaganda.

I doubt this is an original thought, but I get sick of right wingers throwing out the "fascist" epithet to describe the left (liberal fascism anyone?) along with the left doing it some too.  When the left goes too far it becomes soviet-style communism.  When the right goes to far it becomes Nazi-ism or  Mussolini-style fascism.  The two extremes meet full circle.  Those extremes aren't any different to me; they're both evil.

Thugs Chan?  Some wussie left winger beat you up lately?  You just prove the point that Irony made.  I happen to be one of those "liberals" that finds many traditional (conservative?) values appealing.  I don't care for much of popular culture as I find it too vulgar at times, I am a regular church goer, etc. etc.  Some are surprised at my liberal/progressive attitudes based on how I live my life.

I don't mind serious debate.  I mind invectives and lies.  Limbaugh isn't a pundit but an entertainer that tries to gin up controversy.  I've listened to him before but he never, never lets anyone who disagrees with him to debate him.  Same with Fox news.  The one time I did see someone have the balls to call Fox on the carpet was Bill Clinton in his interview with Chris Wallace.

tnmats, RU486 IS abortion.  But, at the earliest possible stage.

The Left is not lacking for big megaphones:  The NYT.  The LAT.  The Boston Globe.  The Chicago Tribune.  CBS.  NBC.  ABC (with some mitigation).  All the cable news channels save FOX.  

They aren't really far Left.  They actually slide around some from center left to mid-Left.  But, they assume many attitudes that are Leftist.  Often not really realizing that anybody could possibly disagree with them.  Their Leftist attitudes are so ingrained that they are surprised, and sometimes offended to have them pointed out.

Before you were born, tnmats, Left and Liberal were the dominant point of view and the dominant politics of the nations (1932-1994).  You grew up in an era when the Left establishment was powerfully challenged for the first time.

However, before the mid-1960s, the Democratic Party was Liberal, but reasonable.  And, people like Jack Kennedy would be considered closer to the Republicans in policy if not culturally today than they are to the Democratic party.  Because with the tumult of the 60's, there was a coup in the Democratic Party, and soon after on the campuses as Baby Boomer Leftists became the establishment on campus and now utterly dominate.

You don't realize this as acutely as I do because this is the sea you have always swum in.  The only world you have ever known.  But, trust me, it was not always thus.  As you read more and learn more, you may come to realize this.  

And, as you get older, get responsibilities, earn a good income, and star paying taxes, you will likely move to the Right.  Though, not for sure.  

I will remind you of Lloyd George's famous old saw (he was politically Liberal in his youth):  "A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head."

CORRECTO:  I tried to fix this before it sailed, but the post went off reformed.

Churchill was in the Liberal Party in his youth, a Conservative later.  Lloyd George was the Liberal Party prime minister during WW1, although his priminstership was made possible by his building a coalition with the Conservatives.

And, tnmats, Glen Beck is a clown.  As is Mr. Olberman.  Both think themselves far wittier than either actually are.

Chan writes:  "Because with the tumult of the 60's, there was a coup in the Democratic Party, and soon after on the campuses as Baby Boomer Leftists became the establishment on campus and now utterly dominate."

I think that if I was scrolling back through recent American political history to find a party in which a "coup" had taken place, somehow I don't believe the Democrats would be the prime example!