"Red & Black" editors fail to condemn violence against "The GuardDawg"

Published in The Georgia GuardDawg, November 2006

The theft of The Georgia GuardDawg’s newspapers and vandalism of its bins on September 14, 2006, was an affront to the free exchange and dissemination of ideas. More than 1,200 issues were stolen, and the containers that housed them were smeared with terms of abuse. The perpetrators rejected thoughts and letters in favor of sabotage and intimidation. They circumvented public debate and flouted ethics and law. This act of vigilante censorship deprived the student body access to a specific publication and debased the political climate on campus.

And instead of unequivocally condemning the crime, the Editorial Board of The Red & Black opined rather ignobly that The GuardDawg brought this fiasco upon itself for being inflammatory. It’s very unbecoming and quite bizarre that the editors of The Red & Black would denounce the target of such of thievery and vandalism. When the target is a fellow student-run newspaper, then The Red & Black’s position seems even more lurid and perverse.

The Editorial Board, so horribly misdirecting its vitriol, managed to convey two points that are worth the rebutting: that The GuardDawg should examine itself to explain this crime and that this type of political violence is bound to happen where offensive and allegedly extremist opinions are concerned. To shift some of the blame for this crime onto the doorstep of The GuardDawg may seem to help explain it better, but the simplicity of this proposition fails to mask its fatuousness and dubious ethicality.

The GuardDawg neither deserved to have its labor desecrated and pilfered, nor does it now need to search for reasons to explain what has occurred. That’s because there are no legitimate reasons. Certainly there are honest and rational disagreements to be had, but that these differences were not sorted out through argument demonstrates the philistinism of the perpetrators. For The GuardDawg to change its ways in light of this incident would be to capitulate to vandalism and intimidation. This would undoubtedly give credence to this nefarious method and subject all future purveyors of unpopular opinions to these gangster tactics.

No one should ever expect, especially in a liberal democracy, to have their published opinions answered with barbarism and subversion, even if the ideas happen to be of a hateful or malignant nature. There can be found no justification in any legitimate system of morals for responding to political speech with lawless force; to believe otherwise is simply antidemocratic. To avoid or even tread lightly on sensitive subjects is the way of incurious and craven minds, and it is the path to complacency and subjugation. Writers have the responsibility to say what is unpopular and speak the truth regardless of the consequences. That those on the Editorial Board seem not to realize this is a grave and appalling pity.

So if you engage, as the editors did, in apologetics for this political hooliganism, then you have abdicated the right to condemn any future acts of its kind, no matter who the target may be. Are you willing to give tacit approval, if not to the crime, then to their motivations? Because if you believe that what was leveled against The GuardDawg constituted well-deserved chicanery and nothing more serious, then you will have no right to be outraged if a liberal paper is ever stolen or if progressive activists are ever harassed and threatened. To sympathize with the sabotage of the free press is to be, like the ignoramuses who committed this crime, hopelessly covered in shame.