Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Rape is good?

I have no idea how to put a link here from the thing I just watched at cnn.com. There is a video news story called "Rape's good, 'magical' for the ugly, writer says." It might be put into a text story later but right now it's only a video.

The point the writer seems to be trying to make is that "rape only hurts if you fight it." It was intended to be satire but apparently missed the mark. It was written by a 23-year-old sophomore in college as an editorial.

As tasteless as the piece was, should he be protected from criticism and/or punishment for exercising free speech?

3 comments:

UnrulyDuckling said...

You can see the actual article here

You can read more thoughtful opinions from this upstanding young writer here and here

Thanks to Twisty and Jesus' General

lunchstealer said...

Protected from punishment by the school? Yes. Protected from punishment by whomever is in charge of hiring people for the school paper? No. They've got every right to can his ass from the college paper.

Part of an opinion columnists job is to know how to garner an audience. If he hasn't got enough judgment to know that satire has GOT to be handled well, or not at all, then he shouldn't be writing.

And maybe getting fired will provide the smack to the head that he needs. Of course, he will probably think that he's the victim, and learn nothing, but at least then he's not writing for the paper any more and won't be causing its editorial staff any more trouble.

That said, he shouldn't be kicked out of school, or subject to any hate speech stupidity. He should have to accept the consequences of doing his columnist job badly, but that should not preclude him from continuing in his education. Hell, it sounds like he needs all the education he can get.

Particularly, he should study the history of Texas gubenatorial races from the 1960s to the present. There might be a lesson he can use at home hidden in there somewhere.

Anonymous said...

What an astoundingly stupid motherfucker.