Posted on 02/16/2005 7:37:24 PM PST by Dustin Hawkins
University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill has written that "unquestionably, America has earned" the attack of 9/11. He calls the attack itself a result of "gallant sacrifices of the combat teams." That the "combat teams" killed only 3,000 Americans, he says, shows they were not "unreasonable or vindictive." He says that in order to even the score with America, Muslim terrorists "would, at a minimum, have to blow up about 300,000 more buildings and kill something on the order of 7.5 million people."
Ann Coulter
To grasp the current state of higher education in America, consider that if Churchill is at any risk at all of being fired, it is only because he smokes.
Churchill poses as a radical living on the edge, supremely confident that he is protected by tenure from being fired. College professors are the only people in America who assume they can't be fired for what they say.
Tenure was supposed to create an atmosphere of open debate and inquiry, but instead has created havens for talentless cowards who want to be insulated from life. Rather than fostering a climate of open inquiry, college campuses have become fascist colonies of anti-American hate speech, hypersensitivity, speech codes, banned words and prohibited scientific inquiry.
Even liberals don't try to defend Churchill on grounds that he is Galileo pursuing an abstract search for the truth. They simply invoke "free speech," like a deus ex machina to end all discussion. Like the words "diverse" and "tolerance," "free speech" means nothing but: "Shut up, we win." It's free speech (for liberals), diversity (of liberals) and tolerance (toward liberals).
Ironically, it is precisely because Churchill is paid by the taxpayers that "free speech" is implicated at all. The Constitution has nothing to say about the private sector firing employees for their speech. That's why you don't see Bill Maher on ABC anymore. Other well-known people who have been punished by their employers for their "free speech" include Al Campanis, Jimmy Breslin, Rush Limbaugh, Jimmy the Greek and Andy Rooney.
In fact, the Constitution says nothing about state governments firing employees for their speech: The First Amendment clearly says, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." Firing Ward Churchill is a pseudo-problem caused by modern constitutional law, which willy-nilly applies the Bill of Rights to the states -- including the one amendment that clearly refers only to "Congress." (Liberals love to go around blustering "'no law' means 'no law'!" But apparently "Congress" doesn't mean "Congress.")
Even accepting the modern notion that the First Amendment applies to state governments, the Supreme Court has distinguished between the government as sovereign and the government as employer. The government is extremely limited in its ability to regulate the speech of private citizens, but not so limited in regulating the speech of its own employees.
So the First Amendment and "free speech" are really red herrings when it comes to whether Ward Churchill can be fired. Even state universities will not run afoul of the Constitution for firing a professor who is incapable of doing his job because he is a lunatic, an incompetent or an idiot -- and those determinations would obviously turn on the professor's "speech."
If a math professor's "speech" consisted of insisting that 2 plus 2 equals 5, or an astrophysicist's "speech" was to claim that the moon is made of Swiss cheese, or a history professor's "speech" consisted of rants about the racial inferiority of the n-----s, each one of them could be fired by a state university without running afoul of the constitution.
Just because we don't have bright lines for determining what speech can constitute a firing offense, doesn't mean there are no lines at all. If Churchill hasn't crossed them, we are admitting that almost nothing will debase and disgrace the office of professor (except, you know, suggesting that there might be innate differences in the mathematical abilities of men and women).
In addition to calling Americans murdered on 9/11 "little Eichmanns," Churchill has said:
The U.S. Army gave blankets infected with smallpox to the Indians specifically intending to spread the disease.
Not only are the diseased-blanket stories cited by Churchill denied by his alleged sources, but the very idea is contradicted by the facts of scientific discovery. The settlers didn't understand the mechanism of how disease was transmitted. Until Louis Pasteur's experiments in the second half of the 19th century, the idea that disease could be caused by living organisms was as scientifically accepted as crystal reading is today. Even after Pasteur, many scientists continued to believe disease was spontaneously generated from within. Churchill is imbuing the settlers with knowledge that in most cases wouldn't be accepted for another hundred years.
Indian reservations are the equivalent of Nazi concentration camps.
I forgot Auschwitz had a casino.
If Ward Churchill can be a college professor, what's David Duke waiting for?
The whole idea behind free speech is that in a marketplace of ideas, the truth will prevail. But liberals believe there is no such thing as truth and no idea can ever be false (unless it makes feminists cry, such as the idea that there are innate differences between men and women). Liberals are so enamored with the process of free speech that they have forgotten about the goal.
Faced with a professor who is a screaming lunatic, they retreat to, "Yes, but academic freedom, tenure, free speech, blah, blah," and their little liberal minds go into autopilot with all the slogans.
Why is it, again, that we are so committed to never, ever firing professors for their speech? Because we can't trust state officials to draw any lines at all here? Because ... because ... because they might start with crackpots like Ward Churchill -- but soon liberals would be endangered? Liberals don't think there is any conceivable line between them and Churchill? Ipse dixit.
Okay, laughing WITH me is fine (although laughing at me is not unknown either. Poor me.) I can, however, sing the Alka-Seltzer jingle (but not here on a public thread.) Remember the original movie Gidget, Deborah Walley, died a few years ago. So sad. But Moondoggie lives!! And I hope you have been to Paradise Cove in Malibu where they filmed many of the scenes. How did we turn an Ann Coulter thread into a Gidget thread? Does Ann even surf or drink malted milks? I doubt it. Have any Beach Boys anecdotes while we're hogging bandwidth?
Ann is a big Grateful Dead fan, whicxh is a hoot, since she is far from a hippie!!
No never been further west than Nebraska, or further south than KY. I do have a rather cute moondoggie however. LOL
Each time it's posted, I get to see at least one more picture of her. That ain't no waste of bandwidth!
Have been wondering the same. . .just how many 'poohbahs' have their own 'chair' in a University?
Love AC. . .bring her ON. . .imagine. . .
As for Liberals who whine. . .'that they ARE patriotic'. . may they just.keep talking. . .
But yes, shane on us, off topic, and on an Ann COulter thread of all things! On that note, it's time I finished my work and sign off for tonight. Thanks for the replies, even if they were off topic. LOL Blessings to you!
"I'll have a cheeken sandwich, made with a live cheeken."
Yeah, I don't get Ann's Deadhead thing. And I hear there can be some wicked surfing on the Platte River, it's just that nobody ever sang about it. Well someday you should visit Gidget's beach -- which was also the beach used in "The Rockford Files" and in the William Conrad show "Jake and the Fat Man." Glad you have your own Moondoggie -- I do have my Surfer Girl who I can hear above the crashing waves asking me when I am going to get off this computer -- uh oh, it IS late here along the sun-drenched shores of the Charles River -- a pleasure meeting you -- see you at the pier.
Pahdun me! Pahdun me! I have have just come out of the John Hancock bahthroom whea I was taking a shouwa in the Alexander Hamilton bahhttub! Naow, I haav an impawtunt meeting in fifteen minutes and I must move ahead towads ouwa bedroom with great vigah! Whea is the ah bedroom? The ah bedroom is whea?
bttt
Nuttin but net!
Sweet article Ann!
PS: Naming my soon to be born daughter Ann!
Professor Sitting Bull-sh*t.
LMBO!!!!
She is totally misinformed on this point. The English used this tactic during Pontiac's War in 1763. Lord Jeffrey Amherst's letters survive and they are quite specific on the point. They might not have known much about microbiology, but they certainly knew that blankets, clothes and bedding were infectious. Innoculations against smallpox were practiced long before Pasteur.
http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Spring04/warfare.cfm
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/127/8_Part_1/635
Excuse me but the original gidget was played by Sandra Dee. Debra played her in the second movie which was set in Hawaii. Thanks.
Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."
Ain't that the truth...
Must be scarey to them.. to consider Churchill is just like them except from a fringe on the other side of the same garment..
If you're male...will you marry me?
Bull.. You missed the point.. I suppose Ladulum(mercury and opium) was not given (as a cure) until almost 1900 by the medical community.. You give the medical community way too much credit for the those times.. Herbal cures saved far more than the "doctors" did.. As is witnessed by all the medicines derived from old medincal herbs we use TODAY,,,
Did I say, ALMOST ALL MODERN MEDICINES, ah! I see I did..
This singular line is essential Ann Coulter...
Ironically, she's right!
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