Dear you, whoever you are: I just fail to understand why you think tagging someone else's building makes you a badass. Is it the thrill of meeting late at night, armed with your powdery chalk and your ideology? Is it, perhaps, the eyes that roll when they walk by your magnum opus the next day? Or maybe it's just the joy of preaching to the converted, who agree with you and won't challenge your clever slogans and your passionate intensity?
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." William Butler Yeats said that. It's the preface to a book that was written by a man who came here to speak this weekend. But you've never heard of him, I gather. You should have gone to hear him speak. But you were busy, I gather, burning your brainpower to come up with "The American Flag Scares Me."
And all the while, the Committee for the American Founding (CAF) was cloistered in the Octagon, listening to Professor Victor Davis Hanson tell us exactly why we will win this war and how Western military superiority has its roots in the Greeks. You were invited. You were all invited. But only about 20 students showed up. Jesse Jackson's dry cleaner would have drawn a bigger crowd.
But back to you. Do you know anything about the roots of Western military superiority? Do you know why we can't help but win in this conflict with Afghanistan?
Professor Hanson laid it out quite clearly. They do not live in an environment in which dissent is tolerated. Thought is stifled. Progress is stifled. That's why they had to use our own technology against us. They have none.
If you see a journalist from Afghanistan on TV, explained Professor Hanson, know that he is not a journalist but a spokesman for Afghanistan. He is not free to criticize his government, and if he gets on the air and does so, he can be in big trouble.
"If you're a woman, he wants to take you back to the Dark Ages," Hanson said of Osama bin Laden. "If you're gay, he wants to kill you. If you support gays, he wants to kill you, too."
Do you support that, you covert operative you? Do you support the grievances of a man who wants to kill people simply because they are gay? Do you support the bitching of a man who won't allow women to wear pants? Do you support a man who wants the nation of Israel obliterated from the face of the earth?
"They hate our government because they should." Please. Our government saved Afghanistan's butt from communism and the eradication of Muslims in that country. We intervened in Kosovo so that the genocide of Muslims would stop. We liberated Kuwait so that Muslims might be free. We drop more pounds of food than we do missiles.
They hate our government because we're bigger, better and stronger than they are. They hate our government because we support Israel. But they hate more than our government. They hate me. They hate you.
CAF, comprised almost exclusively of alumni, saw your handiwork. They were embarrassed. Congratulate yourself for not changing a single mind. They shook their heads. They looked like they wanted to weep. I wanted to weep. I wanted to say, "It's not that bad here. It's not as awful as it seems."
You embarrassed all of us this weekend. The alumni think that you speak for the entire student body. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
You don't speak for me. You never do. But I don't pretend to speak for you.
So form a coalition. Light some candles. Affirm yourself. I know that my words will be as ineffectual in changing your mind as yours were in mine. But I don't force you to read them. I don't vandalize private property to get them out. I put my name on my words-and the sketch artist put my face beside them.
Your anonymity was your mistake. If I knew your identity, I wouldn't say anything to you. It's also your trap. To retaliate against me, you'll have to fess up.
Sincerely yours, &c., &c.