March 29, 2003
David Blowhard
Last night on OPB's Seven Days, Dave Reinhard of The Oregonian had an interesting thing to say about antiwar protests.
In the midst of completing a "thought" he had apparently had at the close of last week's program, and despite claiming to differentiate between peaceful, lawful protests on the one hand, and "punks" on the other, Reinhard decided to state that because opponents to the war were on the "losing side" of the war debate, they are now demonstrating a disdain for our political institutions.
Actually, what he said was that the antiwar movement was "undemocratic" because it is continuing to protest despite losing the debate about going to war.
This is curious perspective on democracy, of course, given that one of the fundamental premises of, say, the First Amendment is to protect the rights of a minority to challenge the direction of the majority. The rationale being, of course (outside of simply protecting speech for its own sake), that sometimes the majority is wrong, and without protecting the rights of the minority to say so, the wrongful policy may never be exposed as illegitimate.
Conservative blowhards like Reinhard often seem to adore the Constitution until and unless they have to suffer through someone else's use of it's protections. Fortunately, I'm not sure anyone outside of his own conservative circle actually takes Reinhard seriously.
Unfortunately, Reinhard is an associate editor at the state's major daily newspaper, and thus gets to crow on statewide television.
Comments (1)
Emma on 31 Mar 2003
Reinhardt's such a moron. He's a serious stain on the Oregonian and Seven Days. It's fine to have a far-right yahoo to add balance to the reasoned dialogue, but to have such a patent fool...