I had an opinion

If anyone cares to see it, I wrote a opinion column about the flag burning incident which can be found here. I hate putting myself out like that, she said in her online diary. But at Kenyon, it�s different. I�m so different from most people here, as a Republican and a conservative Catholic. I used to get into those long debates that go nowhere when I was younger, but now I�m just sick of it all and sick of being outnumbered. I don�t like pontificating as a rule, but I knew I had a duty to write something about this. I tried not to make it too �outraged conservative draped in the flag� so people wouldn�t attack me and rather consider the actual issue. And I want to be respectful of other people�s opinions. I respect the flag, but it�s a free country still, and if others want to burn flags, I might not like it but I can�t stop them from expressing their view. But what happened here was just cowardly and senseless.

I worry that I made the article toothless as a result. I probably shouldn�t have even bothered to be considerate, because no matter what I did someone would take it the wrong way. I already got one e-mail, which was very polite, taking issue that I speculated that the person who did it was drunk at the time. He was speaking on behalf of drunk people on campus, I suppose, and he said that I was driving a further wedge between the drinkers and nondrinkers on campus to suggest that drunk people did stupid things. I should have modified that to say �drunk assholes�, since I agree that drinking simply frees one of inhibitions and gives some people excuses to do things they have always wanted to do. Mike has a good opinion piece about it here. But what really chilled me was the e-mail I heard about someone send to the Collegian complaining about my article and that �people like me� shouldn�t be allowed to have a voice in a college paper. And there are no papers today in Peirce, which is odd, because usually a big pile of extras stays there for a few days. Robbie suggested that maybe someone took them because they didn�t like what was in this week�s issue (this year we�ve had a problem with people burning the newspaper and the conservative magazine).

�Wait a minute. Don�t tell me this. Don�t tell me someone BURNED the papers with my article on flag burning in it.� Completely ridiculous. It�s only a few people, and most people on this campus aren�t raging assholes, but the ones who are make me so ready to get out of here.