Flexing the Freedom Muscle

I will give you 500 dollars if you can give me examples of right-wing "pro-war" protesters being treated in a remotely similar fashion as the left-wing "anti-war" protesters have been treated recently at Yale.

From Atrios (edited slightly for language*):

1) Wednesday morning - Publishing of an article on Katherine Lo,
whose suite was entered by three men armed with a 2x4 after she displayed an American flag upside-down outside her dorm room window. They attempted to enter her room, which was locked, and left the following note: "I love kicking the Muslims b*tches ass! They should all die with Mohammad. We as Americans should destroy them and launch so many missiles their mothers don't produce healthy offspring. F*ck Iraqi Saddam following f*cks. I hate you, GO AMERICA."


2) Wednesday evening - A group of undergraduates participated in a silent, non-violent vigil-type action in the University's dining halls to mourn the loss of Iraqi civilians in the current conflict. Raphael Soifer, a participant, was followed out of Davenport and spit on by a husky white male.

There's more, and it ain't pretty. And please, none of the "Well, in Iraq under Saddam you wouldn't have the freedom to decry the government," because that's the stupidest argument ever. That's like saying "Since you can show your dissent, that automatically means you shouldn't." What good is ability to flex your "freedom muscle" (to coin a kinky-sounding phrase) if you never actually flex it? If you have the ability to say, play the violin, and then say "I'm not going to play it, because I already can," then eventually you will lose that ability.

Am I the only one this is an obvious connection for? The less we allow ourselves to use the freedom of expression that people have fought and died for, the more the muscle will atrophy and eventually our freedom will be a 90 pound weaking that gets sand kicked in its face by Canada. And nobody wants that.

*I edited the language a little so that people reading this site from work won't get blocked out by their horribe fascist web-nanny software.