Bringin' the Crazy: Ahmadinejad Edition

Posted by Seth Kramer on Tuesday, October 2nd 2007 at 11:15am




Columbia President Lee Bollinger introduced Mr. Ahmadinejad (henceforth Crazy McHolocaustDenier) by saying "you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," and said of the Iranian leader that he was "either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated." Note to self: cancel dinner plans at Dr. Bollinger's house.

Seriously what the hell was that? In what can only be described as his rant, President Bollinger undermined his very message. Bollinger made it clear that President Crazy McHolocaustDenier wasn't there to speak, but to be berated.

And how unnecessary was that? The students of Columbia are perfectly capable of seeing how ridiculous his rhetoric is without the assistance of Dr. Bollinger. Take for instance Crazy McHolocaustDenier's response to a query about the 'mos: "In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have it."

The students had the appropriate reaction: Laugher.

You see for all the hooting and hollering (I can't believe I just used the word hollering) about whether or not Crazy McHolocaustDenier should have been allowed to go to Ground Zero or whether or not it was appropriate for Columbia to let him speak, we seem to have missed the point. In the marketplace of ideas these guys are the losers. No reasonable person can hear "We don't have homosexuals like in your country" and not laugh in their face.

Let fools like this come to our country and use the same freedoms they deny the people in their country. Let them see how reasonable people exchange ideas, and how a reasonable person ignores rhetoric that calls for any soverign nation to be "wiped off the map." No, we don't have to give them a platform, but when we do all we can to control them in the same way they would attempt to control their citizens it is us who looks petty. We seem to be the ones unwilling to have the world hold a magnifying glass up to our beliefs.

When we behave like rude little children, slapping around our guests for their contemptible beliefs rather than asking them pointed questions and exposing their poor excuses for contemptible behavior we empower people like Crazy McHolocaustDenier. For how much more terrifying must it have been for President Crazy to realize that in a country where ideas are exchanged freely and evaluated on their merit that serious people have considered his opinions and found them backward and downright silly?

How much more empowered would the people of Iran feel if they saw not a bunch of knee-jerk reactionaries hurling insults, but thoughtful people amused by the buffoonery of McHolocaustDenier's authoritarianism? They might say "Wow, I'm not the only one who thinks he's batshit crazy," instead of discounting our opinion.

Just my two cents. Feel free to share your opinion

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