There are certain things it seems ridiculous, albeit necessary, for a university student union to protest.

For example, tuition fees. We all know they’re not going down. Let’s forget the recession for a moment. The long and short of it is that the time when the government could feasibly cover us all is long past. With an ever-rising percentage of students seeking university enlightenment, fees aren’t going down, period. The more people who need it the more the government will stretch its post-secondary budget.

On the other hand there are things that really do need attention, and no matter what the outcome, are not a lost cause.

Case in point; the RSU recently joined a group of protesters seeking, quite simply, free speech.

The group attempted to convince the Canadian government to let controversial British MP George Galloway enter Canada to give a series of four anti-war speeches. On Monday a federal judge kept him out. Justice Luc Martineau wrote in his ruling, “The admission of a foreign national to this country is a privilege determined by statute, regulation or otherwise, and not a matter of right.”

Galloway, whose sin, according to the federal government, is having supported the political group Hamas, will give his speeches anyway, via a live video broadcast from the United States. You would think, considering the American view on security,  they would also consider Galloway a “terrorist sympathizer”and bar him. But apparently not.

It seemed for a short while like Canada would change its mind. How can a nation bar a politician from a country that has been not only our ally for decades but our mother, so to speak, for centuries before? Have we honestly gotten that paranoid?

In a digital age it seems barring a person from speaking in a nation is the equivalent of kindly telling a loudly bawling infant to be quiet. Everyone will still hear the baby and the attempt to stop its wailing will fail.

Come on, the guy is still talking to and maybe “polluting” the minds of Canadians anyway. What do they think he’s going to do? Compare Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to our treatment of the natives? Yes there are two sides to every story. Galloway could be a raving maniac playing the nurse to hundreds of thousands of people and refugees who are deprived in the Middle East . . . But why on earth should that mean he’s not allowed to tell his story?

There is a long list of arguments over whether what has happened is right, wrong, cowardly or even purely the law. Was this the right thing for the government to do? Is the Canadian government being ridiculously daft? Is this just some publicity stunt by the Conservatives to get the anti-Palestinian voters on their side? But that is not the  point we are trying to make.

Maybe the government is just being good and following the multitude of laws that often seem to violate each other; but at least the RSU decided to stand for something they had a chance of winning, even if only a slim one.

Free speech is one of those things that is pounded into us in our first few social studies classes, classes the government was kind enough to pay for. Even if they seem to be ignoring what we were taught it is encouraging to see the RSU take a stand on something controversial, even if they may be in the wrong, and stick by it to the sad end.