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Free Speech and Professor Churchill

by Michael Masterson



Professor Ward Churchill (University of Colorado) knows how to attract attention to himself. In an essay he wrote after the September 11 attacks, he said that some of the Trade Center victims were like Nazi bureaucrats. He said they were "technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire."

This is a good example of the dangers of "wissen" knowledge. (See "Word to the Wise," below.) Prof. Churchill - like many academics - gets his ideas from reading books, not from personal experience.

But his essay has gotten him kicked off a couple of speaking platforms and incited a debate about whether he should be censored. And that's pretty scary. The idea of free speech is that bad ideas, like good ones, will eventually be found out - so long as the public gets to hear both kinds. If we regulate ideas, it's much more difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

i LOVE Churchill....Winston. "we shall fight them on the beaches, etc."...the prof. is a nutjob.

lady cop wrote: i LOVE Churchill....Winston. "we shall fight them on the beaches, etc."...the prof. is a nutjob.


Hey LC, you can always count on my unconconditional support regarding this issue, anytime anyday .

Yeah, this guy is a true test of freedom of speech. He hasn't told anyone to kill anybody else, his opinions are just disgusting to everyone, that's all.

I do knid of have a problem with his being a teacher, though. You should leave a political aganda out of the classroom. Even if you are teaching politics, you should teach all sides fairly, without interjecting your personal agenda, and let the students make up their minds for themselves. That's strictly written out in our teacher Code of Ethics book.

Jives wrote: Yeah, this guy is a true test of freedom of speech. He hasn't told anyone to kill anybody else, his opinions are just disgusting to everyone, that's all.

I do knid of have a problem with his being a teacher, though. You should leave a political aganda out of the classroom. Even if you are teaching politics, you should teach all sides fairly, without interjecting your personal agenda, and let the students make up their minds for themselves. That's strictly written out in our teacher Code of Ethics book.


I shal refrain from speaking freely here

Jives wrote: Yeah, this guy is a true test of freedom of speech. He hasn't told anyone to kill anybody else, his opinions are just disgusting to everyone, that's all.

I do knid of have a problem with his being a teacher, though. You should leave a political aganda out of the classroom. Even if you are teaching politics, you should teach all sides fairly, without interjecting your personal agenda, and let the students make up their minds for themselves. That's strictly written out in our teacher Code of Ethics book.


*hotsauce searches feverishly for her teacher's Code of Ethics book* nobody ever gave me one!!!

hotsauce wrote: *hotsauce searches feverishly for her teacher's Code of Ethics book* nobody ever gave me one!!!


Are you a teacher, Hotsauce? I might have known from the funny avatar! The code isn't given out, it's in your district's "policy manual". I didn't even know it existed for the first four years of my career.

One of the worst traps is giving a kid a gift like candy, if it's not available for everyone in the classroom. It's considered favoritism. Each student must have an equal chance for the reward.

There's other interesting stuff in there too, like giving kids rides home if their parents don't pick them up. Dont do it. Not even if it's snowing.

So what do you teach?

Okay...not a "real" teacher...I am a speech-language pathologist in two different schools. If you ask any of my kids though...they would say I was a "teacher" not a "therapist". I have 60 kids....with a variety of disabilities.



Jives, you are a principal?

Doctor Who wrote: I can't see why you're worried about him being a teacher. This guy is a professor and teaches at a university. Your ideas maybe o.k for teaching little kids , but uni students are adults.


Students are students. It's our job to inform them and guide them into forming their own opinions, not instilling our personal opinions in them.

If an academic writes a book, he isn't under an obligation to defend both sides in an argument.


When writing a book, you aren't in the classroom. In the classroom, fairness and objectivity are required.

Also, why leave political agendas out of the classroom in one instance when kids are constantly the subject of those same agendas outside of it.


Not political agendas, per se, just the personal agendas of the teachers. How can a teacher teach both sides fairly if they bring their own prejudices and opinions into the lesson? It's better to teach both sides of an idea fairly and let the students judge for themselves the best side.

As for his opinions disgusting everyone, that's purely an assumption based on your own views.


Which is exactly why you don't want teachers to teach their own agendas! I could be educating your children, without fairness, I could teach them the opposite of your views.

And anyway, I would guess that what he is saying is that this is how those in the WTC appeared to the people who carried out the attack. I don't know that he necessarily believes this himself. :sneaky:


So let me enlighten you: Mr. Churchhil says:

"As to those in the World Trade Center . . .

*

*Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. "

Here he refers to the women, men, and children at the World Trade Center. People just like your family, innocent Americans. A real nice guy, eh? I have a feeling he would be singing a different tune if one of his family was killed there. Hypocrisy is what I call that, if not heartless treason.



". More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants.'

His disdain for the people of his own country amazes me. Stereotyping of the worst kind.

'If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it. "

Judge, jury, and executioner. He compares these innocents to the Nazi that organized the Holocaust. He is actually advocating the use of violence towards innocent people of his own country to young minds. See why I consider him a traitor?

Even if you believe the Islamic terrorists were correct in their feelings, even if you feel that miitary action was justified...waging war against unarmed women, children, and men is fundamentally wrong.

Whatever your cause, once you start to kill innocents...your cause is no longer either just, or righteous.



Here is a link to the original essay. Judge for yourself, then come back for more debate informed. I'll be waiting.

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html