SOME 9/11 THOUGHTS from Paul Rahe.

UPDATE: Prof. Jacob Howland writes:

Shortly after Sep. 11, 2001, I was asked to be part of a public “teach-in” that was held at the University of Tulsa. Paul Rahe was on the panel. I told the audience at this teach-in that our immediate challenge was to prevent further acts of terrorism against the United States. In order to do so, I said, we needed to identify the perpetrators of 9/11 and kill them. “[Our] greatest long-term challenge,” I added, was to change “the culture of hatred”—and in particular, vicious anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism—in the Muslim world. I concluded my remarks as follows:

I know that some of you may be angry with some of the things that have been said, or will be said, this evening. All I ask is that each you be willing to speak your own minds without fear of what others may think. This is not a time to conform to your neighbor’s idea of what you ought to believe and feel. Nor is it a time to ignore or to suppress unpleasant facts. It is a time for clear thinking, straight talk, and unflinching honesty.

In the discussion after my talk, a faculty colleague publicly denounced me for, as he wrongly claimed, proposing that Americans should intentionally kill innocent civilians. Another told me that he was glad the United States was attacked on Sep. 11. A third scolded me for saying things that, she claimed, would intimidate our students. A fourth condemned me, in an e-mail that was widely distributed, as a shill for evil Zionists. A fifth who attended another public lecture I delivered after 9/11 printed up, and distributed to dozens of faculty members who were not present at my lecture, a mischaracterization and ostensible rebuttal of my views. And, several other faculty colleagues simply stopped talking to me altogether.

Just thought your readers might be interested.

Jacob Howland
McFarlin Professor of Philosophy
University of Tulsa

I notice how the lefties — see, e.g., Glenn Greenwald — often first completely misrepresent your statements, then attack their own misrepresentation. I take that as an admission that they have no coherent response to my actual words, and suggest that you take it the same way. They can’t handle “clear thinking, straight talk, and unflinching honesty,” since under those circumstances they would never win an argument. As for the people who won’t speak to you, well, they’ve shown themselves to be petty, dishonorable, and entirely out of place in an academic institution. So the lack of their company should be welcome.