The Right Coast

February 28, 2005
 
Prof Chruchill, redux
By Tom Smith

Michelle Malkin has these excerpts, which are reputedly from Ward Churchill talks at some college campus. Am I missing something, or is he referring to the terrorist attacks that killed some 3,000 innocents, and killed them in a particularly horrible way, as good things? That's certainly what it looks like, but without the context, one can't be entirely sure. But if he is saying what he sounds like he's saying, well, then, the trustees at Boulder should just fire the guy. Good grief, if some professor were to show a picture of the lynching of a black man from the 1930's in the South, emit a rebel yell and say "Just makes you proud to be an Amurican!", and say it in all apparent sincerity, I like to think he would be fired. I mean, shouldn't he be? I think there is plenty of room for academic freedom without providing state funded sinecures for proponents of mass murder. If that's how Professor Churchill feels, let him be paid by some demented Saudi, not the taxpayers of Colorado. Didn't some Coloradans die on 9/11? Aren't there Coloradans fighting in Iraq and A-stan now? Seems a bit at cross purposes, if that beautiful, mountainous state is also paying for a professor who is saying (if indeed he is) that it's just swell that all those Americans died for the crime of being Americans. The state of Colorado may not be able to prevent such speech, but it doesn't have to underwrite it.
AND now that I look at it again, he seems to be talking about the best ways to carry out terrorist attacks. He seems to be saying something like, now that all Arabs are suspected of being terrorists, it will be hard for them to kill lots of people, so others of us will have to take up the slack (and this guy is against profiling! Apparently on the novel the grounds that it might prevent terror attacks!) As I said, perhaps I misunderstand what he is getting at, but, look, nobody could possibly object on First Amendment grounds to firing a state employee who holds open (or closed!) discussions on how best to wage war on the civilian population of the United States.
AND FROM OUR FAR FLUNG CORRESPONDENT . . . Somehow I am not surprized to learn Dr. Churchill may not be a great respector of property rights. (via this law student blog.)