"You're right, affirmative action is the solution to our nation's problems! I couldn't have said it better."

"Oh thank you, you're too kind. But I must say, I think you did say it better--I just loved your article in Perspective on Harvard's own wonderful affirmative action policies..."

Clearly we don't want our discourse to deteriorate to this point. We value discussion for the role it plays in moving our community and our society forward. We value diversity--diversity of opinion, which a certain conservative called "the only true diversity."

If the left-wing hopes to ever live up to its ideals of respecting freedom and protecting the disenfranchised, it must reform the way it deals with the right. Instead of brushing conservatives off as "hate-mongers," "racists," "crazy people," liberals must respond with rational argument to the intelligent and potent attacks of conservatives.

E. Adam Webb, former president of the Association Against Learning in the Absence of Religion and Morality (AALARM), explained last spring how the standard liberal response affects conservative students.

"It's your freshman year and you come from a traditional community," Webb said. "You come to a place where people abhor your entire way of life--your desire to have a wife and kids, your belief in God. You feel like you have no place here, you feel that people don't care about your issues."

If liberals refuse to change and continue on their current path, they risk having their hypocrisy recognized. They risk having their liberalism exposed as being anything but liberal, a bankrupt and empty ideology which calls for everything to be free (health care, abortion, etc.). Everything except for speech--even if that speech is from a marginalized group. The marginalized need protection and respect, not abuse.