Our Opinion: The vandalism of the ROTC building with anti-war graffiti is a childish and selfish act and only serves to devalue the protester’s intended message.

Protest can be a wonderful thing. It is democracy in action — people joining together for or against a cause, citizens vocalizing their opinions, the little guy sticking it to the man.

Indeed, protest can be a powerful and influential means of expression. However, this is not true of a recent act of “protest” that involved the vandalization of the ROTC building in Reynolds Coliseum.

The spray-painting of anti-war messages on the ROTC building was a selfish and ignorant act. If the writer hoped to persuade others to his or her cause, the manner by which this persuasion was executed only served to repel people away from any intended message.

The use of graffiti and vandalism as a medium for political expression is both shallow and counter-productive. It indicates an inability articulate a message of protest without resorting to defacing property. It demonstrates a refusal to establish rational discourse on the subject and only serves to portray the vandalizer’s cause in a negative light.

In addition, the mere fact that the perpetrator e-mailed 27 media outlets to announce his or her crime further emphasizes the audacity and self-centeredness of this act.

The hard-working individuals that make up NCSU’s ROTC program have every right to be upset by this act of vandalism. We support a person’s right to non-violent protest, which obviously does not include criminal acts on our campus. It is a shame that the very freedoms that our ROTC and armed forces work to protect are so wantonly abused by an unappreciative few.