Tossing her abundant mane back with both hands, taking a step away from the mic and squaring into a glinty-eyed stance worthy of a political pugilist, activist Bay Buchanan did what any estimable conservative would do. She led with her right.

The former U.S. treasurer then verbally socked UNC's leftist anarchists right in their snot noses for disrupting previous right-wing speakers.

Time and again during her lecture at UNC on Thursday, Buchanan implored friend and foe alike in the audience "to have a legitimate debate," and reminded them that a university is a proving ground for open minds, intellectual integrity and respect even for contrary positions.

"That's not a group of individuals that's really interested in learning," Buchanan said of the boorish UNC radicals who shut down the speech by former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo with their foul language, broken windows and intimidation tactics.

Buchanan said she came to speak about "free speech, which I think is well needed on this campus." The overwhelming importance of that fundamentally American right "is critical to democracy," she said, and "must be missed in History 101 around here."

The entitlement mentality campus anarchists, of course, have anointed themselves as thought police over what should and should not be heard. One wonders if they ever heard from their liberal Ivory Tower professors the sort of matronly scold Buchanan heaped on them for their intolerance of diverse thought while, ironically professing to champion differences.

It might be anathema to the secular humanists whose "progressive" agenda includes a regressive march to censoring the public square, but Buchanan was dead-on when she said the key to wisdom is "to learn to listen to both sides ... . That's a blessing to start to feel uncomfortable."

Unfortunately, in today's self-medicating, prescription-happy, quick-fix, bailout society, nobody wants to feel life's little pinches, and certainly not its painful punches.

When one group squashes civil debate, "then you lose opportunities for truth to come out," Buchanan said. She gave several examples of how free speech has the power to substantially alter the course of government.

Unpopular speech on college campuses led to America's evolving position on Vietnam and eventual withdrawal.

The tea parties and town halls of the past summer convinced Congress to change the direction of the legislative process.

A previous attempt to pass amnesty for illegal immigrants was running 3-1 in favor of approval in Congress with two weeks to go before a vote when angry callers shut down the phones in Washington. "The only people against it were the American people. ... The uproar was so great that the bill went down," Buchanan said.

By failing the test of integrity and representing the interests of the people who sent them to Washington, politicians become "sheep" who cast party-line votes "because it's expected," Buchanan said. "They are not leaders in that town, and this country deserves better."

She's right about that, of course. And that may be the biggest object lesson of her speech. Students who fail today to debate honestly, who use intimidation and scare tactics to shut down opposing viewpoints, will never be fire-tested or have a true measure of their beliefs because they failed to challenge them. They become sheep.

By sitting down with someone to discuss their opposing views, "that might get you thinking," Buchanan said, using a pro-life abortion position as an example. Maybe the pro-choice person asks if you really want a 12-year-old girl raped by her father to carry that baby to term.

Suddenly, "your mind is open. Maybe you aren't so pro-choice as you think you are," or maybe you mull over that uncomfortable scenario and resolve, like Buchanan has, that abortion still is not an appropriate solution because "every single time it's a child" in the womb with the right to live.

Once "you go through the firestorm," you possess courage of conviction. "You could save the life of a child because you had the willingness to speak up. That's leadership," she said.

And that sort of common sense is what is all too often missing in our in our increasingly shallow society.

Dan E. Way is editor of The Chapel Hill Herald. Send e-mail to dway@heraldsun.com or call 918-1035.