Being a copy-editor for the Beacon means that I often have the opporunity to read letters to the editor, as well as new editorials, before most everyone else. A great deal of buzz resulted from an editorial two issues ago about animal rights, and how "dumb" activists that support it, are.
The following week there were two biting letters to the editor protesting the editorial..and this week's issue will feature, it seems, a letter to the editor defending the original editorial against the two susequent protest letters.
The argument is against censorship over the opinions of the editorialist. I can understand that position, of course, but freedom of speach does not, or at least should not, cover name-calling. The editorial was juvenile in that respect, and this new letter fails to address that, in favor of attacking the administration, and the school, for censorship by printing the two protest letters.
Censorship is, to my mind, wrong. But so is making brash claims and attacks against something that has not been researched. How else can anyone form an intelligent argument without any facts? That is, I believe, the real reason behind the protest letters.
Why can't we all get along? No, never mind. I know why we can't. Humanity is stubborn, and we all feel that we are right in whatever it is we believe. How else can war be explained. There have been wars about land, about religion, about greed and about women named Hellen (if such myths can be believed). There just seems to need to be an excuse, and poof, there's a war.
The trouble is, there is no "winning" most wars. The death toll is always too high on both sides, or all sides, of the conflict for there to be any true winner. Not unless the "winner" just happens to be the one that gets the flag in the end. I don't agree, frankly. War is a tragedy, and never produces a triumph. It also seems to be, sadly, an aspect of human nature that we seem unable to avoid.
At this point, all I can think is that maybe vegetarians are right- I'm willing to gamble. What have I got to lose? If we stop killing animals, perhaps we'll stop killing eachother, too. I'd much rather kill a radish than a person.
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3 comments:
I look forward to reading this week's Beacon. However, in this instance, raising the specter of censorship is clearly a "red herring" -- an informally fallacious means of distracting attention from what's really at stake: the legitimacy of prevailing uses of nonhuman animals.
Beyond censorship, what we're seeing in this person's editorials is the use of libelous 'witticisms.' While I'm not sure about the role censorship should/could play in mending his words, his slander certainly reveals the weakness of his arguments. Blanket statements and personal attacks (in the sense that I'm a vegetarian and feel personally attacked and belittled) are the resources of the ill informed!
Some humans choose to kill both humans and nonhumans, mostly for very bad reasons. Some humans choose to kill only nonhumans, mostly for very bad reasons (reasons that, in fact, would allow the killing of some humans if consistently applied). Still other humans choose not to kill nonhumans, mostly for very good reasons. Sane members of this latter group of humans also choose not to kill one another for the very same reasons that they resist killing nonhumans. I'm convinced that a consistent, secure foundation for peace rests with the latter group alone.
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