But why should any of us be surprised given their track record this semester?

Their front page article about the vandalism of ROTC buildings at UNC and NC State was fine until the Tar Heel decided to publish an email from the vandals about their political motivations for defacing them.

Our illustrious campus newspaper only furthered the vandals' cause by giving them precisely the publicity they sought, and by doing so, the paper became a conduit for these crimes, whether knowingly or not.

Nevermind the fact that I disagree with the vandal's message (I'm not going to repeat it because that would only make me a hyprocrite, but you can probably connect the dots either by reading the linked article or by realizing it was vandalism against an ROTC facility--it's not too hard). I don't care if the vandals were trying to gain publicity for sword-fighting pirates in Indonesia. They committed a crime for the purposes of furthering a "cause" (sound familiar?), and by spreading this cause the DTH has only added to the problem. The paper's imagined, absolute devotion to "inform fully" seems to trump everything, including common sense.

Now, nevermind the fact that I fully support the DTH's right to publish what they did. I love the free press as much as the next guy, and legally speaking, they certainly haven't overstepped any bounds that they shouldn't have. As a journalist, I like being protected for publishing stupid things. (It happens).

What I am saying, however, is that the paper has an ethical duty to the well-being of our community (and you'd certainly have to hold them to this duty considering their incessant columns from editors to readers about wanting to be "your paper"). They clearly ignored this duty when they decided to give these idiots the attention they so badly wanted. It was an oversight at best, irresponsible decision-making at worst.

Sometimes I just wonder what they were thinking, or if they even thought at all...

This may be old news, but I've wanted to comment for a while.

A recent Carolina-led study recently concluded that:

Teenagers between the ages of 12 and 14 who use media with high sexual content are up to 2.2 times more likely to have sex by the time they are 16 than those who use less such media.

So, basically, this study surveyed kids when they were 12-14 to see if they watched a lot of MTV and other debaucherous entertainment. Then they came back several years later and surveyed those kids again about their sexual lives.

They also found that:

Brown and her colleagues found that one of the strongest protective factors against early sexual behavior was clear parental communication about sex. White teens who reported that their parents did not approve of them having sex at this age were less likely to have engaged in precoital sexual behavior. Both black and white youth who reported their parents did not want them to have sex were less likely to have engaged in sexual intercourse by the time they were 16 years old than those who perceived less parent disapproval of teen sex.

Isn't it funny that we need to pay PhD's to confirm beliefs that were just considered common sense fifty years ago. If one comes in contact with sexual content more, they will be more disposed to partake. In other words, as your mother told you when you were young, "don't fill your head with garbage." Secondly, parents can actually have a positive effect on their children.

These are just stunning revelations. My whole life I thought conservative's desire for parental control in their children's life and their distain for M-TV and such filth was simply traditionalistic backwardness spawned by men's effort to preserve the oppressive patriarchy of a bygone era. I guess I was wrong.

Who decided they could cut down trees in front of Carmichael Dormitory? These weren't wee little sapplings either. These were big hundred-foot jokers. There better have been a good reason, like people were going to die from the continued presence of those trees or the cure for cancer was in those trees' sap and none other.

Also, who's the genius that decided to alternately close the sidewalk between Morrison and Manning as well as Ridge Road between Stadium and Manning? Now I never know which way to walk in the mornings. Thanks. A. Lot.

This UNC construction expansion better be amazing when it's done. I'm talking spectacular. High school seniors better come to campus and "ooh" and "ahh" and pass out at how freaking wonderful it is. Because right now, I'm annoyed.

David
www.nostempore.net

Your logic about not being able to legislate hate crimes is flawed, but really I think the situation is just more nuanced than either of you want to realize.

The courts differentiate between premeditated murder and crimes of passion, one obviously being much more serious than the other. That distinction is based solely on intent. In both types of murder, the victim is no more or less dead. Therefore, law can differentiate the seriousness of a crime based on intent, and dole out varying degrees of punishment accordingly.

Based on your logic we shouldn't use intent as a means for deciding punishment. In the case of hate crimes, the intent is more offensive to society's sensibilities than in crimes motivated by other factors. The same is true for crimes of passion versus premediation. Premeditated murder is merely more offensive to society than someone who kills out of anger or excitement. That's why it carries a harsher penalty.

I'll admit that hate is a hard thing to pin, and that someone should only be charged with a hate crime when it is utterly clear that it was a prime motivating factor. In cases such as the Duke Lacrosse scandle where the accused were allegedly yelling racial slurs at the victims, I'd say that's pretty clear.

But let's take this argument in a different direction (although it might be the same direction you took it in, just in different words).

So we got this thing, the first amendment. And it protects everything. My right to say whatever I want, your right to say whatever you want. If someone wants to think that all gay people are stupid and morally reprehinsible, that's protected just the same as the gay community's right to hold pride parades and live their lives the way they want to.

So if all opinions are protected under this first amendment, then if you attach a harsher penalty to a crime because of someone's opinion, you've essentially criminalized the opinion. But, is it true criminalization because the opinion isn't punishable until its acted on? Can opinions be protected in the abstract but then condemned when put into action?

My gut instinct says they can be protected and condemned, but the part of me that wants to live in Absoluteville* where everything is black and white tells me that harsher penalties for certain kinds of opinions is an infringement on the first amendment.

*terminology courtesy of Richard Hronek (intellectual property rights are a downer)

For the second time this year, I agree with Sara Boatright's DTH column. In "New Hate Crime Law will not save lives" she writes :

The fact remains that hatred is a bastardized offshoot of feeling and opinion, and we cannot outlaw hate any more than we can outlaw love. We can outlaw expressions of love, such as gay marriage, and we can outlaw expressions of hate, such as rape or murder.

Although I probably disagree with her on the issue of gay marriage, her overall point is well taken.

Many people have been writing on the effort by the National Center for Men to free men from having to pay child support. In other words, giving them a "choice." Unfortunately, even conservatives don't really seem to be getting the point.

Kathryn Lopez writes on NRO, that "A "Roe v. Wade for men," however, would only make a messed-up world worse." It seems to me that she is missing something here.

Ofcourse pro-lifers would agree with that expanding something they view as bad (Roe) would make things worse. Expanding + Bad = Worse.

But what about those who think Roe is a good thing? In their view Roe is good. And doesn't it make sense that expanding something good to more people is better? Expanding + good = better.

Or how about this? If babies are a problem to both men and women and the final solution for women was abortion, why is this such a terrible final solution for men?

The point is, it's not. If killing is a just act in the effort to avoid an inconvenience, then so is being a deadbeat. The only reason pro-choicers have a problem with this is because they haven't been conditioned to think it okay. If they were holding true to their own logic (like our friend Sara Boatright) they wouldn't have a problem with it.

On the otherhand, ofcourse prolifers find it reprehensible. Mrs. Lopez is stating the obvious and missing something big here. Those who vehemently support abortion (plannned parenthood, the feminazi in your math class, etc.) want to create a very different world from those who value life. And we'll all be a lot better off when we realize that fact. The world that Mrs. Lopez invisions and the one the director of NOW invisions are at odds. Only one of them can prevail.

Peter Singer is a professor at Princeton and humanist philosopher that believes that infanticide should be legal. Infants, he argues, are no more "human" than fetuses. They are not mentally aware or "viable." They are a burden to their mothers. This may seem crazy to some people, but it is no more crazy than believing that a fetus is not a life. And so, I commend Singer for consistency. He is right about one thing. There is no difference between a fetus in the eighth month and a baby of eight months.

Nonetheless, Singer is seen as out there. Most feminists (male and female) who argue for the killing of the fetus would not argue for infanticide.

But Singer's brand of consistency is spreading. Sara Boatright's most recent column claims that men who get their girlfriends pregnant should not have to pay child support.

"Women in America have worked constantly to achieve the financial independence, freedom of thought and freedom of choice necessary to shape their own reproductive futures. It is possible, with the right amount of tireless effort, to raise a child alone or not have a child at all. Demanding a monthly paycheck from a one-time partner hardly does justice to our inherent strength," she says.

This was in reference to a suit in which a man is trying not to pay his chid support payments on the ground that his girlfriend claimed at the time that they were having sex that she was incapable of getting pregnant and that she did not want children.

So, while this seems reprehensible, Boatright is correct. If we claim that it is a woman's choice to kill her child on the premise that "choice" is the most important value in our society, then the law must recognize a man's choice too. If a woman has the choice to end life, a man should have the choice to not financially support that life.

Who knows? Maybe this column is a sign that people are truly embracing their beliefs. Pretty soon, mothers will be able to kill their new borns and fathers won't have to pay child support.

Isn't it a beautiful world that we have created? Much better than one in which children are valued, dead beat fathers are held to account, and virtue, not selfishness is declared as the leading societal value. Who would want to live in that world?