Column: The problem with protests

By Craig Colbrook

I’ve always had a lot of respect for activists. Even on an open campus like this one, it isn’t always easy to speak your mind. At the same time, I’ve usually had very little respect for the Orange and Blue Observer and even less interest in whatever they have to say at their little rallies. All they seem to do is moan about liberals, and you won’t get me to drink Pepsi by insulting Coke. I have, however, to tell my activist friends that they got something wrong this week: they didn’t need to protest the OBO’s “Conservative Coming Out Day.” Trust me, the OBO can dig its own grave just fine, all we have to do is let it.

Now, I came to this conclusion for several reasons. First of all, I find it absolutely precious when the loudest, most self-righteous conservatives swipe from gay culture. More importantly, though, I bet that the only people who pick up the OBO work for it. No one is fooled by their poorly shot photos, poorly written articles and poorly punctuated text. As a tool of persuasion, the OBO is pretty impotent.

I’m sure the OBO’s staffers know this, too. They must have realized by now that most of this campus just wants to ignore them. So, the only way they can get heard, the only way they can get any attention at all, is to do something controversial, or at least something that will piss off campus activists. I’d bet they’re not as intolerant, gun crazy and scared of women as they seem (though it’s probably pretty close). They just know what’s going to bring people to the quad.

And the activists fall for it every time. The OBO announces a rally and the activists come running. They come holding signs, attracting the media and bringing far more people than the rally ever would have attracted on its own. And even if it’s a tame protest, as Wednesday’s certainly was, it still gives the OBO attention it doesn’t deserve. They cause a scene, and give the OBO the means to get their message to a lot more people.

Now, I’m not insensitive to the activists’ arguments. In fact, I agree with them. It is ridiculous to compare the “persecution” felt by conservatives on this campus with the struggle for gay rights. There’s no Republican Matthew Shepard, and if the OBO was really serious about respecting all political beliefs, they wouldn’t throw around banner headlines accusing liberals of everything from betraying the troops in Iraq to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Then again, I suppose “we respectfully disagree with our less-than-conservative fellow students” is a pretty weak headline.

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And I agree that more guns won’t solve the problem with violence, even if we give the guns to the more vulnerable segments of society. All that will do is change the targets. We need more responsibility, and raffling off a gun – while combining all the fun of an army surplus store and a church carnival – is not that responsible.

But everyone already knows this. There’s no need to point out the glaringly obvious logical fallacies in the OBO’s argument, unless you’re desperately trying to fill up space in a weekly column. The average student on this campus isn’t even going to break stride at an OBO rally, unless they see that there’s actually some sort of conflict. That’s exactly why the OBO staffers do these crazy things. They want the conflict. They want the protest. Ultimately, they just want the attention.

So, my activist friends, I think you got played. The next time the OBO wants to throw a rally, I say we all stay home and let them whine by themselves. The OBO’s first gun raffle last year wasn’t protested, and it pretty much wasn’t attended, either. The great thing about us students is that we can almost always pick out the phonies and blowhards.

Craig Colbrook is a senior in Communications. His column appears every Friday. He can be reached at [email protected].