Taking One For The Team
Writing by treason on Sunday, 26 of February , 2006 at 9:43 am
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was on C-SPAN this week. It’s not like this is a common occurrence so I was intrigued. Why is Scalia making himself so available? The trouble, of course, is that C-SPAN sometimes feels like NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics. There’s a hint of what’s to come, so you wait…and wait…then look for something somewhere that will tell you precisely when the event will actually appear so you don’t waste any additional time waiting…and waiting.
What happens while I’m waiting for an Olympic event or a particular bit of C-SPAN coverage is that I’ll surf to something else and get involved with that so I miss what I was waiting for in the first place…or I’ll leave the room to grab a beer or refill the bird feeders and forget to come back…or I’ll simply slip into a coma and wake up near the end of the coverage or miss it entirely.
Yes, I know C-SPAN has a TV schedule on their site, but I’m trying to say that it’s not terribly accurate or helpful. Doesn’t always match reality. So what generally happens is that I’m surfing and I land on C-SPAN or the Olympics and find myself in the middle of what I wanted to see. Happened last night when I finally got to see Scalia’s remarks at the American Enterprise Institute.
He was there to discuss the impact of international law on U.S. law. I don’t care if you disagree with Scalia - you’re a damned fool if you don’t recognize that his brain is bigger than most of the ones taking up precious space on the planet. Mine included. That’s why, if I had been a law student who had the opportunity to listen to Scalia speak on such an important issue AND had the chance to formulate an intelligent question to put to him, I would have been grateful to be there and would have behaved accordingly.
There’s that word again: behave.
Yes, I believe in free speech, but I also believe in the rights of others who are there to listen. It reminds me of the English class I facilitated during my student teaching days. There were two boys in class who were determined to make it impossible for anyone else to learn anything because of their constant disruptions. These two - now eighteen and expecting to graduate - had to pass my class because they’d failed every other one taught by the seasoned English instructors. None of those teachers wanted these kids back in their classes, so when I went to them for guidance they told me that they didn’t want to see them again - just pass them and get them out of the system.
Mistake. I wasn’t about to hand out passing grades to punks who didn’t deserve them. One day I looked at the exasperated expressions on the thirty-eight other faces in the room and it occurred to me that these kids were being cheated because of two miscreants who wanted attention. It might not have been the right decision, but I made it. Point blank I told the students in front of every other kid in class they there was no possibility whatsoever that they would pass the course so they were wasting their time showing up to class. I suggested that the spring weather was lovely and that they should go enjoy it and get out of my classroom.
It was the first time they shut up. Then they left, and every now and then I’d see one having a cigarette in the parking lot and he’d wave. But they never walked into my class again.
Horrors! How could I do that to these youngsters? My theory was that they’d made a choice, their school administrators and parents didn’t care, and I could try to fix them or concentrate on the other thirty-eight kids. I chose the other thirty-eight.
So when the smarmy little hecklers wasted Scalia’s time and cheated everyone else, someone should have escorted them out. Since that wasn’t going to happen it was up to Scalia to shut them down. He did. The man doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and these were some big time fools. Their remarks were not clever, smart, funny, or cute. They were, in fact, painfully stupid and revealed their complete and utter ignorance. If anyone watched this and believed that these were the lawyers and political scientists of the future, they would have shuddered. I did. And hoped that they weren’t wasting their parents’ money and were only paid hecklers. At least one was - he appears to be a regular at these events.
Scalia was brilliant and tough and gracious. A couple people thanked him for his patience. He made it clear that he was there to answer specific questions about the topic and wasn’t getting any. What he got was stupid commentary, so he refused to address anything that didn’t relate to the subject at hand. One little creep shouted that he was only taking “friendly” questions. Obviously this cretin wasn’t paying attention. He was answering all questions - friendly or unfriendly - that related to international and U.S. law. That’s why he was there.
These obnoxious little brats squandered an opportunity. I’m tired of college students whining that education is underfunded and that it isn’t fair that a college education isn’t free. Waste my tax dollars on these dolts? I think I’ve frittered away enough on government schools. If students aren’t willing to open their minds to facts - whether or not they’re “friendly” - then screw ‘em.
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