BYU students say no to Dick

I've been following this story with great interest. If it were up to the arrogant morons at Brigham Young University, free speech would only apply happen at public universities in America, or perhaps not at all.

More than a few of BYU's students are very upset at the university's invitation of Dick Cheney to be this spring's commencement speaker. People who are adamantly opposed to Cheney's appearance (which is today, by the way) are having an event of their own - Ralph Nader is speaking at an alternate event today (off campus, of course).

I always laugh at private universities requiring students to "ask permission" to protest. If you ask permission, it's not a protest, people.

Lots of interesting things about the footage above. The fat guy who touched the student - if he had touched me, I immediately would have had him arrested for assault.

At the end of the vid, I got a kick out of BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson, who, in so many words, tells the inquiring student to go screw himself.

I'm not a particularly huge fan of Nader, but I like and admire him a whole lot more than Dick Cheney. So, I'm happy for BYU students that they are having a counterweight of sorts to Dick.

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought that college campuses are a place of expression and free thinking (with some sensible limits). Evidently, that idea is dead on BYU's campus.

Pathetic and sad.