Yoga pants protest: Bullying and intimidation

To the Editor:

To all those who may consider writing a letter to the editor: beware! No longer is free speech met with responding free speech; it is now commonly met with thinly veiled attempts to physically intimidate those who exercise the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The 300-strong "protest" march past the home of the man who wrote a silly letter to the editor of the Barrington Times about his disgust with yoga pants was a prime example of those who disagree with peaceful speech attempting to intimidate the speaker. For the protest organizer to have even looked up the home address of the letter writer is disturbing. I can imagine the thought process: "Let's see where this [expletive] lives!" It's the same thought process that in the past led to "Crystal Night" violence against Jews in pre-war Nazi Germany and the firebombing of black family's homes in the American south.   

It started on our exalted Ivy League college campuses with speakers being hounded off the podium by "enlightened" students and professors who want the college experience to be about living in cocoons of narrow, preconceived notions rather than about expanding knowledge through the exploration of diverse ideas. It went on to the demand for "safe spaces" where students can flee from "trigger words" and "micro-aggressions.”

Now it's gone public in Barrington. Had the yoga pants protesters voiced their opposition to this "micro-aggression" by marching anywhere other than the front door of the letter writer's home, perhaps the anti-free speech message might not have been so egregious. But the targeting of the letter writer's home was bullying and intimidation, pure and simple, and went far beyond the pale of what the Constitution's founders intended as responsive "free speech.”

Lonnie Barham

Warwick