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-By Warner Todd Huston

Here we go again with a so-called freedom of speech claim of a bunch of low-class, petulant children playing at being real “journalists” in one of our state funded Universities. This time it’s the little fellas at The Rocky Mountain Collegian, the school paper of Colorado State University, who are hiding behind a real right and using it as cover to realize their 15 minutes of fame. These anti-intellectual, collegians are, of course, pretending to be shocked that anyone would question their “right” to print an expletive in bold headlines in their paper and are claiming that they didn’t mean to “upset” anyone. I have another four-letter word that describes this absurd claim: LIES.

Proving that our schools seem to be more interested in creating controversy, teaching anti-American ideas, and indulging in childish behavior, this supposed student newspaper staff seemed to imagine that journalism should reflect some trash mouthed, morning disc jockey’s schtick instead of serious, reasoned debate. Sadly, it is obvious that these kiddies were left to their own devices in writing and preparing their paper. It seems woefully clear that there was no faculty supervision of these anarchist wannabes. So, not only are we left wondering why our college kids so anti-intellectual but we have to wonder why no one is supervising their misguided attempts at writing. Do these school administrators get a salary to TEACH or do they not?

Remembering that Colorado is the home of Ward Churchill, though, perhaps CSU’s professors’ teaching worked only too well for these half-informed, infant newspapermen?

Denver TV Channel 7 gives us an understated headline for their report, Profane Language Puts Student Editor’s Job On Line, Editorial Raises Eyebrows, Controversy At CSU, to alert us to the story.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A four word editorial with a four letter word in it is sparking a spirited discussion on free speech at Colorado State University.

The Rocky Mountain Collegian published an editorial on page 4 of the paper Friday which read “Taser this … F*** Bush.”

Naturally, they are hiding behind their misconstruction of the principle of free speech to excuse their idiocy.

In a letter to the University Community and Collegian readers, McSwane wrote, “While the editorial board feels strongly with regard to First Amendment issues, we have found the unintended consequences of such a bold statement to be extremely disheartening.”

“I plan to be honest,” he said. “Our intentions weren’t ‘Hey, let’s upset the community.’ It was, ‘Let’s get college students to talk about freedom of speech.'”

Mr. McSwane is obviously being disingenuous… no I should speak plainly. Mr. McSwane is a liar. How can there be much doubt that he knew full well what would happen when a reaction of outrage over his calumny occurs and that he had, indeed, counted on it in order to get noticed? He wanted his name on TV and he got it. After all, of the decision for going forward with this nonsense, editor David McSwane said, “We felt it illustrated our point about freedom of speech.” Obviously it was thought out in advance and they counted on this reaction.

But here is the thing that is most vexing from these sorts of actions and that is the faux outrage that perpetrators like McSwane counter with when confronted with their effrontery.

He pretends to be shocked that anyone would be mad at him. He claims to be amazed that his paper was pulled from the shelves and that advertisers were pulling their ads. Gosh, why would people be so mad?
Continue reading “Profane College Newspaper Hides Behind Free Speech”