First Amendment protections on freedom of speech and the press are vital for our political system. Those freedoms, however, while they are the most essential and most prized, are the ones we attack most. As Opinion Editor of this newspaper, I feel compelled to address the outrage and response surrounding a letter to the editor that I made the decision to publish in last Monday’s edition of our paper. I hope you read this column through to the end, even if you disagree with me.

In brief, a lecturer in the intensive English and orientation program wrote in to us briefly criticizing the College Republicans, and the Republican Party in general, for collecting materials so they could send care packages to soldiers overseas. Mr. Walker is not paid by us, nor is any writer who writes a letter or guest column. Nor do their opinions represent those of the Daily as an institution. The only opinions that do such are editorials. Columnists are paid by us, but their opinions are nonetheless their own.

Nor did the Daily have anything to do with the fliers that were slipped under hundreds of dormitory doors early Thursday morning.

I believe the headline I gave the online version of the letter, “Republican patriotism excludes those in need,” faithfully captured the author’s message. The letter, however, used unsavory language that clearly offended many readers. Whatever truths were contained in the letter were probably lost on the readers because of his words’ offensive nature and aggression in getting to the point and moving on so he could meet our limit of 300 words.

Nonetheless, he had every right to say what he did. The First Amendment’s language that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” exists to ensure a vibrant discourse in public on the issues of our time that we need to work out solutions for. It especially exists to protect unpopular opinions from a tyranny of the majority. Popular opinions, by definition, are insulated from danger. They do not require special protection.

Disagreement is part of our inheritance from the founding fathers and the Revolutionary War. The colonial governments fought Great Britain together, but agreed on little else. That disagreement persisted after the war and led to calls for a convention to revise our then-constitution, the Articles of Confederation. That convention, held in 1787 in Philadelphia, was characterized by debate after debate by men who wholeheartedly disagreed with one another. Ratification of that convention’s work, our current Constitution, was not easy, either. The pamphlet, newspaper and oral debates of the next year were as polarized, vibrant and vicious as anything we hear today.

It is my job to print the opinions available. My section exists to provide thoughtful commentary from people who work for the Daily and to provide you an opportunity to weigh in with an opinion of your own. I have tried to do that. Before Thanksgiving this year, we received few letters. Afterward, for whatever reason, more people started submitting more letters. Walker was among them. After his letter was published, my inbox was inundated with more letters criticizing both his argument and him personally and calling for his removal.

The letter sections of the Thursday and Friday papers are dominated by anti-Walker letters. That is because, on the days we designed those papers, those were the letters available. They also fit best on the page. Letters supporting Walker do exist, and I am trying to publish as many incarnations of the several viewpoints as possible. Other letters on other issues also exist, and I am trying to publish those. Our website can only display six letters to the editor at a time, but continue looking to it for additions to the discussion.

Opposition is indispensable in any society that wants to retain its freedoms. Don’t kill the messenger because what he says displeases you. In the words of Walter Lippmann, “The essence of freedom of opinion is not in mere toleration as such, but in the debate which toleration provides: It is not in the venting of opinion, but in the confrontation of opinion.” And as Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.”