One year after Mohammed Taheri-Azar’s attack on the Pit, it is sobering to think that Carolina’s only physical protection from a similar act of terror are the metallic three-foot poles known as bollards that guard the entrances to campus. These retractable rods – small in size, unassuming in appearance – that dot the roads and pathways from Davis Library to the Bell Tower and Memorial Hall are the last line of defense for the thousands of students, faculty, and workers who come to the University each day.

Thankfully, a first line of defense is thousands of miles away in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries in the Middle East. Each day, over 150,000 American soldiers put their lives at risk to defend American civilians at home by fighting in terror’s breading grounds abroad. These soldiers, whose mission is often criticized in the press and derided on television talk shows, are vital to America’s safety and continued freedom.

As Carolina learned on March 3, 2006, terrorism is difficult to prevent. When a terrorist boards a plane, constructs a bomb, or, in Taheri-Azar’s case, rents a car, it is essentially too late to avert the attack. Airborne U.S. Marshals, bomb-sniffing dogs, and bollards can only do so much to stop an enemy intent on killing. By seeking out the root of terror in the Middle East, however, the United States military can disrupt and destroy terrorist activity before it has the opportunity to reach American soil.

No doubt, taking the initiative against terror comes with a high price. American forces currently face chaos in Iraq, military expenditures have spiked, and some Middle Eastern governments have become increasingly reluctant to cooperate with the United States. Worse, the American military cannot prevent every terrorist from entering American soil. Taheri-Azar, for example, lived nearly his whole life in the United States before carrying out his attack.

Yet the War on Terror’s cost cannot compare with the consequences of withdrawing American soldiers from the Middle East. Terrorists want to destroy the United States not because American forces occupy the Middle East, but because the United States – its freedoms, its culture, its values – represents a ‘great Satan’ in radical Muslim thought.

Pulling back from the front lines will not curb terrorist activity, Leftist arguments to the contrary. Instead, America will expose itself to an energized enemy, eager to exploit our vulnerabilities at home. Without a presence in the Middle East, America’s margin for error will shrink from the streets of Baghdad to our shores, cities and hometowns. We will have invited the enemy to our gates.

And in Chapel Hill, at least, only bollards will stand in terror’s way.

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The University of North Carolina prides itself on tolerance. From study abroad opportunities to the academic diversity requirements, the University seeks to ensure that its students have access to a broad range of ideas and beliefs. Undoubtedly, such exposure expands students’ perspectives and creates multiple learning opportunities both inside and outside the classroom.

Yet one viewpoint is often conspicuously absent from Carolina’s wide array of tolerance: the voice of conservatism. Although the University rarely silences conservatives outright, many of Carolina’s policies, programs, and instructors work in unison to ridicule, diminish, and degrade conservative beliefs.

One recent example of this lack of acceptance can be found in the University’s selection of Sister Helen Prejean’s The Death of Innocents for the Summer Reading Program. Prejean’s book follows the emotional journey of two men whom the author believes were wrongly executed. With each twist and turn, Prejean attacks the practice of putting prisoners to death. Indeed, according to the Daily Tar Heel, at least one committee member expects that, “Students who are for the death penalty will be forced to defend their position.”

Of course, defending one’s beliefs is a hallmark of the learning process, and academic institutions should present alternative positions to foster creative thinking. At the same time, however, the University rarely confronts the convictions of its liberal students. The Summer Reading Program, to take one small example, stands as a glaring testament to the fact that conservatives will be ‘forced to defend their positions,’ while liberal students can find reinforcement for their beliefs within Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed or Michael Sells’s Approaching the Qur’án.

The 2007 selection promises to be no different. While not all conservatives advocate the death penalty, the vast majority of freshman who will come under fire for supporting execution, will hold conservative beliefs. Their experience in the orientation book discussions will be baptism, so to speak, for the necessity of standing up for their views while students at Carolina.

Some will lose their way, but the truth is, regular confrontation only makes most people more certain of their beliefs – more adept at defending what they knows is right. At Carolina, conservative students will learn to polish their arguments and exercise their minds, while liberals, overwhelmingly, will simply be able to regurgitate the beliefs of others.

Perhaps liberals hoping to make the most out of their collegiate experience, therefore, should advocate for a summer reading book that challenges their ideals. As philosopher John Stuart Mill so eloquently put it, “He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that.”