Tuesday, October 24, 2006

College Republicans planning on sabotaging Barrett?

I heard a rumor today from a student that the College Republicans took a number of tickets to the Barrett presentation. Their plan, supposedly, is not to use them, so that there will be empty seats in the auditorium.

If this is true, it strikes me as quite a reprehensible act. I hope someone else has heard about this and is going to make sure that people who want to go are not thwarted by this crap.

As much as I think that Barrett is a problematic speaker, trying to keep people out is worse!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha! That's good! Rumours of dark conspiracies swirling around a proponent of dark conspiracy theories! The irony!

Lake Winneblogo said...

The Northwestern reported this morning that the head of our College Republicans has received an anonymous death threat.

Apparently, he called the cops on a Fair Wisconsin rally, because they didn't have the right meeting permits.

Although it is disgusting to make anonymous death threats, the earlier behavior of the CRs makes the rumor here more credible.

The College Republicans seem to be interested in suppressing those who disagree with them. (I bet they support David Horowitz, though!)f

Anonymous said...

Just to clarify a few points in that story:

1) The "gay pride rally" was actually a "Civil Rights Rally" organized by the Winnebago Peace and Justice Center (WPJC) which invited representatives from WisPIRG, People of Faith for Fairness, & Students for a Fair Wisconsin to speak.

2) Nate Nelson didn't "call" University Police to the scene - they were already there. The rally was legal, the use of a megaphone (apparently) was not. Nate may have asked UP to end the rally due to the use of a megaphone, but UP was already on site. I was there, I know.

3) This happened over a month ago, September 26 to be exact. The death threat was reported to have happened the next day, September 27. The "news" of this death threat just came out four weeks later in a press release issued by the "Leadership Institute", the agency that funds "Life and Liberty News", the conservative student newspaper that Nate Nelson writes for (latest edition issued today).

4) The implication in both the press release and the news reports is that someone "opposed to the Amendment" made a death threat on Nate Nelson because of his actions and/or views. But Nate Nelson has been a solid 'opponent' of the Amendment himself - at least until last week. If there was a threat sent to Nate Nelson, it would not have come from anyone from the gay and lesbian groups on campus who knew very well where he stood on this issue. He has been considered a 'distant' or 'silent ally' by the GLBT community until very recently.

5) Nate Nelson was walking around campus today carrying a megaphone and passing out "Dump Doyle" stickers before the Doyle event on campus. I guess the threats to his life are really getting to him.

And now you know ... the rest of the story.