Student assaults Pat Buchanan
I'm sure some of you heard about what happened to Pat Buchanan during his speech on thurs. At the end of his speech a student walked up to the stage and threw ranch dressing all over him. The student was held by other students until the police got there. My friend who is in the college republicans and in charge of the event, walked Mr. Buchanan off stage. Mr. Buchanan wanted to take a couple more questions but they ended it for security reasons. My Question is, When the university has a very contoversial speaker come, who is a national icon, why would they not have better security for that speaker? Pat Buchanan refused to press charges and the student does not go to western so probably nothing will happen to him.
FYI: The money that paid for this event came from the SAF(Student Assessment Fee) account. Every semester every student pays twelve dollars into this fund. Imagine how much it costed to have Pat Buchanan come speak and the price of advertising for it. My point is, not letting a speaker finish and tearing down flyers is only wasting the money of every single student at Western.
7 Comments:
This person was not a part of any of the organizations that formed the peacful rally (Hispanic Alliance and NAACP-camupus chapter)So I don't think there is much we can do about it, when you have someone come to a university to speak about such a heated issue there are bound to be problems. I think it is Pat Buchanans responsibility to make sure he has ample security. I don't condone what the person did but I also don't condone what happened after the person threw the ranch which was shouts by people including; "Thats why we don't support diversity", "You should go back to mexico" and then handing out flyers about "hating liberal scum" The old saying that two wrongs don't make a right is in full effect. I also question the use of "national icon"?? I read the flyers and I'm sorry but he doesn't sound like a national icon to me.
Seeing as how Pat Buchanan stands at another end of the political spectrum than I, I was not happy that he came to campus in the first place. But I realize that there is a group of people that share his ideologies, so good for them in getting their hero to come to campus.
I dont understand why the money he required to come to Western came out of this "assesment fee" if that is indeed the case. They shouldn't call it an "assesment fee", unless it is used to "asses" something useful. They should call it the "Bring Conservatives to Campus" fee. Being more liberal minded, I think that regardless of what happened to Pat's wasted question and answer session, or the "plethora" of flyers around campus that were torn down paid for by the "assesment fee", it was a waste of my money.
I think this shows how much of a budget "guru" Pres Bailey and the board really are. Confusing names for accounts can mean shady financial practices. I mean no one would be forking over more money to this University if there was an account labeled: "Judy (Bailey) wants to remodel her bathroom" fee. They just label it something different and then go ahead and use the money for it anyway.
The upper management doing little for the students angers me more than a KVCC student direspecting a political figure on campus, although both are wrong.
I think the waste of money is less the issue than the fact that the question and answer session was cut short. I am a very strong opponent of Pat Buchanan, and I thought it was a shame that we did not get to ask him more questions and get him to clarify the vague language of his speech and address some other issues such as gay marriage and the Minuteman Project (which he addressed briefly). Everyone I know, progressive and conservative alike, was upset about the salad dressing incident. (According to AP, the student is being charged with Disturbing the Peace and will be arraigned on the 14th.)
As far as Buchanan's speech went however, I would be interested to hear what everybody thinks. He used many logical fallacies, and I found it especially interesting how he kept saying that allowing multiculturalism in this country will lead to "balkanization" of the country. Not only is this a slippery slope fallacy, but it also shows he has little knowledge of how the Balkan genocide actually occured (and why). He also said that having "the same histories, heroes and language" are what makes America a "REAL country". This led me to wonder if he considers countless other countries such as Canada to be "fake" countries since they are multi-lingual. Also, since when do we all have the same history and heroes anyway? My favorite sign being held by the protesters outside the event was the one that read: "We are all immigrants Buchanan, even you". I also found it interesting that the questions had to be written down and then selected and read by a College Republicans spokesman (with his own intonation). I can see some of what was behind this, as they said it was meant to weed out "personal attacks", but it looked like the group just didn't want or trust people to speak for themselves. And as it unfortunately turned out, a personal attack was not prevented anyway.
Some of you might know or suspect that I am a member of the College Republicans here at WMU, and I attended the Pat Buchanan event. As far as I know, the SAF is open for any RSO to try and get money from. If the Progressive Student Alliance wanted to bring someone that shared their viewpoints then they could have had their event SAF funded just like we do. Also, to address the Q&A point, the reason that we started having people write down their questions is so that people don't get in front of the microphone, talk for ten minutes, verbally attack the speaker, and never end up asking a thoughtful question. I remember past event that we had where we couldn't get in more than a handful of questions, but now that we have people write down their questions, more questions can be asked of the speaker, both agreeing and disagreeing with speaker. I personally agreed with most of what Pat said, disagreed with some of it, and was challenged by the rest.
We will discuss this in class Monday, along w/ F 9/11. The question we'll ask is this:
Did throwing salad dressing at Buchanan promote, or hinder, free speech on campus?
Being a student who has paid my SAF fee for years, let me just say that I am not pleased that my money was spent on Mr. Buchanan. I didn't tear down flyers or attend the speech. But if student funds are going to be used to bring such controversial people to the university let me just say that I am even more elated that I am leaving this university. I do not want any part of a university that misuses student funds in such a manor. If all students have to pay this fee, than the money should go to something that is targeted for all students not a small portion of the student demographic. I would feel the same way if the money had gone towards paying for a speaker for the green party or the democrats.
I think it should be pointed out that SAF funds go to speakers of ALL persuasions, not just conservatives. And if we were to determine that SAF funds could only fund "mainstream" views, then we'd limit the free exchange of ideas, which is a core mission of the university.
Beyond that, though, are serious problems of practicality. Who would determine what a "mainstream" or "unoffensive" position is? By what criteria?
Should SAF funds go to sponsor Muslims clerics who speak about Islam? Should SAF funds go to sponsoer radical lesbian feminists who speak out against religion? The list could go on. And SAF funds have funded speakers of all such stripes. From ethnic RSOs, activist student groups, religious organizations, etc.
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