Good reads around the web
Ward Churchill: 1st Amendment Poster Idiot Child
Slate's Dahlia Lithwick pretty well nails this brouhaha over a second-rate professor's right to make a first-rate jackass out of himself. Like it or not, this is precisely what the framers of our Constitution had in mind when they crafted the First Amendment. The real question should be directed to the University of Colorado committee who hired and granted tenure to this wacko: what were you thinking? [Hat tip: Rebecca Blood]
USA to Europe: Tell it to the hand
Meanwhile, Francis W. Porretto offers some exceptionally good advice to the US State Department to consider when deciding how to make up with Ye Olde Europe: Don't. [Hat tip: The Fat Guy]
Calling North Korea's Bluff
Phelps doesn't believe for a second North Korea's claim of having a nuclear weapon, and makes a rather convincing argument as to why. Whether he's right or wrong about the bomb itself is almost secondary to the potential bad outcomes of either scenario.
Well, I guess I wasn't clear in what I wrote, but it's important not to confuse the speech itself with the venue in which the speech is made. I was referring to the former, and you haven't explained why what he said isn't protected by the Constitution.
Posted by: Eric at February 15, 2005 08:24 AMAbout the publisher
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Eric,
Like it or not, you're exactly WRONG when you say that Churchill was the sort of thing the framers had in mind for "freedom of speech".
Ward Churchill is not a "political opponent" of government; he is an attention-seeking nobody, a third rate pseudo-intellectual with questionable academic credentials and numerous examples of fraud and deception in his past, including plagiarism (supposedly death to the academic career, but nobody seems to care).
The right to speak freely should never be confused with the right to be heard, which is NOT enshrined in the Constitution. Churchill can say what he wants; Colorado taxpayers are NOT required to pay his salary so that he can do it, nor are they required to fill an auditorium with their precious children so that he will have an audience.
His rights are fully manifested by standing on a soapbox in a park. Which is what he should be doing.
Posted by: dave at February 15, 2005 08:18 AM