Rosen: Shut up and sit down

Published September 28, 2007 at midnight

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College students are revolting! Well, not all of them. Mostly those lefties with an inflated sense of their own wisdom and importance. Their latest cause celebre is a would-be martyr, University of Florida student, Andrew Meyer, who was Tasered by the pigs (that's "police" in the jargon of student revolutionaries) last week while disrupting a campus speech by Sen. John Kerry.

Meyer's act was a contrivance from the outset. He's a self-styled prankster, a class clown with a history of childish antics and an unworthy hero. He began his diatribe berating Kerry for conceding the 2004 election, citing absurd election fraud conspiracy theories. This was followed by ravings about the Skull and Bones Society and impeaching President Bush. When Kerry attempted to answer, Meyer ranted on, at which point his microphone was cut off. Undeterred, he became increasingly hysterical. Finally, when several police officers attempted to remove him peaceably, Meyers aggressively resisted. Then came the Taser.

Did the cops overreact? No. It was their duty to remove those who would disrupt the event. What's the alternative? Let him rave on? The use of a Taser is decidedly more humane than a nightstick or a chokehold in subduing physically uncooperative nut cases like this.

"What did I do?" screamed Meyer, repeatedly. OK, how's this? You were a public nuisance. You abused your privilege to ask a question. You were disrespectful to the speaker and the audience. You attempted to hijack the Q&A session. Go outside and rant on a soapbox. That's free speech. Nobody came to hear you. They came to hear the senator. Your boorish behavior violates the rights of others in the audience. This is the kind of arrogant mentality that leads student brownshirts to shout down conservative speakers on campus or assault them with pies.

As a local sidebar, student "journalists" writing for the Rocky Mountain Collegian at Colorado State University in Fort Collins responded to the incident with irrational, self-indulgent indignation, offering this terse editorial: "Taser this . . . F--- BUSH. This is the view of the Collegian editorial board." What in the world President Bush had to do with the behavior of police at the University of Florida is anybody's guess. It's just another example of childish, left-wing college students playing at being grownup journalists.

This is why the word "sophomoric" was created. Aren't they courageous, using a dirty word. If their intent was to make an analogous point about free speech, they're sadly mistaken. Andrew Meyer had no First Amendment "right" to disrupt the Kerry speech.

The First Amendment prohibits Congress from making laws abridging freedom of speech or of the press. That means you have a lot of latitude as a citizen to speak your mind without fear of arrest. But, even then, that freedom isn't absolute. There are civil penalties for libel and criminal penalties for inciting riot or yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

As an employee, a customer, a spectator or a student you have even less latitude. Your boss can fire you for things you say and do in the workplace or even outside of it. You can be ejected from a movie theater for excessive talking. If you give your wife the wrong answer to, "Do I look fat in this?" you'll get little relief from a First Amendment defense.

J. David McSwane, F-bomber-in-chief of the Collegian, is a paid employee, answerable to an oversight board. He and his staffers don't own the newspaper. They only work there. And their use of profanity in an opinion piece is a clear violation of the stated policy of the Board of Student Communications. If they get canned, they'll have only themselves to blame.

Then they can launch their own raunchy, left-wing rag. And that would be protected by the First Amendment, as it should be.

Mike Rosen

This is why the word "sophomoric" was created.

Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA. He can be reached by e-mail at mikerosen@850koa.com.

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