I was thoroughly impressed with BYU on thursday. Or atleast a few students at BYU. As I'm sure most of you already know BYU invited Dick Chaney to speak at there official commencement this year. He accepted the invite of course (Provo being one of the [if not theee] biggest conservative strongholds in the country).
Well a few (25) choice BYU students decided to use there right to protest and held an alternative commencement with speakers who not agree with Chaney (An evil man, who botched the Iraq war, has political ties with big business, and supports degredation of human and constitutional rights). Anyway they invited Pete Ashdown, Jack Healey and Ralph Nader. I just want to give props to all of the people who pulled this thing together. As anyone who has lived in happy valley can attest, it's not very easy to do anything around here that doesn't follow the basic beliefs of the community. I mean you can get completely chastised for opposing the church's ideals. As i'm sure they did
Even if these speakers at the alternative commencement didn't agree with the students specific ideas I thought it has had an amazing effect on the valley. It has created a stage for questioning of our leadership, something that doesnt happen often around here. Just in the past few days I have heard people talking to each other about the controversial speakers.... This will create more and more political talk and maybe even some free thinking. I feel like on a personal level i have bennefited from it greatly. It forced me to question the policies of our local and national government and want to get more involved. I plan on attending more local meetings and trying to stay on top of whats going on in our country and the world.
Props to BYU!!!!
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