The Daily Tar Heel
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The Daily Tar Heel

Letter: Rights and comfort in conflict

TO THE EDITOR:

I was baffled by yesterday’s letter titled “Protesters must respect others’ rights”. What rights are we talking about — the right to apathy? Every year there is uproar when some human rights protest rocks the sleepy conscience of some UNC students who would rather not hear about the suffering of others lest they be made to care about them. Your rights do indeed end where others’ begin, but others’ rights do not always end where your comfort begins. Are protests supposed to be confined to conveniently out-of-the-way places? (I recommend staging all future riots at the Forest Theater for maximum impact and comfort.) The author of yesterday’s letter reminded us that one can “catch more flies with honey than vinegar” — but catching flies is not what most protests are about. Sometimes it takes vinegar to wake you from your moral slumber.

Stephan Grabner, ‘15

Philosophy

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