To the Editor of the Branding Iron:
I have to whole-heartedly disagree with Joe Rubino’s Oct. 30 letter to the editor “Students should respect political debaters’ right to speak.” You might be surprised to hear this from a bleeding heart liberal degenerate like myself, but I consider myself a patriot.
Rubino probably considers himself a patriot as well, which makes it weird that he would complain about the audience’s “utter lack of respect” during the gubernatorial debate hosted at UW Oct. 25. All I saw was democratic engagement, the exercise of free speech and my fellow students putting an opportunistic idiot in his place with the only responses his stupid ideas deserve: laughter and booing.
When I sit in an auditorium and my fellow country-people openly mock Rex Rammell’s word vomit, I feel a pride in my country I feel few other places. There are so many places in the world where this kind of rowdy town hall/debate could or would not happen. But it happens here and we’re rude and we’re belligerent because in this country, at least in principle, we brutally abuse ideas and ideologies to see if they can withstand the test of scrutiny.
All you free speech warriors should love this.
Consider the specifics of Rammell’s word vomit and the forum he’s barfing it into. He decried big government anytime it would be used to help poor people, support infrastructure or educate children, but pulled a complete 180 when big government would let him control women’s bodies and limit the rights of LGBTQ people. Asked about early childhood education and if the state should fund it, he said his kids didn’t have it and he found that they “caught up eventually.” So he’s inconsistent when it comes to his views on big government and he’s a privileged moron when it comes to education issues.
The verbal spittle dribbling down his chin as he stands before us, asking for the honor of being our next governor deserves jeers in real-time.
So jeer Rammell. Jeer Gordon. Hail (and vote!) Throne. Feel weirdly okay about Struempf the pragmatic libertarian. And above all: be a rowdy, critical, engaged patriot now more than ever.
Jeff Victor
Communication Graduate Student
