when i was at the university of texas in the middle of the fight to save affirmative action, and at the height of the student protest movement there, the university's well-funded libertarians brought horowitz to campus to try and counter our momentum. his talk was pretty candid, and the audience was mostly critical of him, and we had a pretty spirited question and answer with the guy, who got angry, but never stormed off, and entertained every question. i actually enjoyed the chance to grill him,and was surprised at his patience.
later that year, ward connerly came to campus and it was a spectacle of an event. student groups planned to "shut connerly down". the university libertarian groups planned on having the talk in a small auditorium with limited access. there were rumors that only invited guests could attend. at this time the student protest movement at UT was getting pretty militant, having just taken over the UT tower and won demands from the administration.
connerly had recently been "shut down" at other campuses around the country. berkeley, michigan, wisconsin, brown, emory. we saw the chance to go heckle connerly as participating in a kind of a national strategy.
what was clear to me, though, was that it was more connerly's national strategy than ours. his entire talk was pure schtick. much like the horowitz talk that was reported, connerly requested several cops and guards, who lined the aisles of the auditorium with handfuls of plastic handcuffs. as he talked, students would chuckle or yell something at him, and he would stop and ask the police to arrest the hecklers, which they didnt do. after maybe five minutes he decided to stop speaking and said if the police didnt arrest everyone he would leave. they didnt so he left. the papers the next day all carried the story of how connerly was harrassed and his first amendment rights were trampled.
connerly became a martyr for his cause and didnt even have to write a speech.
this is what i think horowitz is up to. why is he placing his ads in university papers instead of mainstream dailies? he wants to be met with protest. he wants to posture himself as a victim of the left's hypocrisy. this has always been horowitz's schtick... that the left is riddled with hypocrisy. but he's been slow to the punch with this particular strategy. connerly was the pioneer.
dave hill UNITE _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com