Better Banter

A Columbus man has shot and killed his wife. Unfortunately, that alone is not news. What is news is that the shooting happened at a hospital and the shooter was shot by police as he exited. News reports say the man and his wife were both in their 70s. Preliminary speculation as to motive is a mercy killing/suicide. Jay Nordlinger wondered why not shoot Terri Schiavo, given the court had essentially ordered her death. It would certainly have caused less suffering. Are we there yet? What will be the reaction of those on the left if it is determined (or perhaps just intimated) that the wife in this case wanted to die? Is this Dr. Kevorkian with a bullet? Will the left be able to swallow this one?

In my post below on Fairleigh-Dickinson Professor Jacques Pluss, I relied on an excerpt from equinoxnews.com, and did not register with the site to get the full article. I decided later to do so and see the rest of it. After Prof. Pluss' dismissal, the National Socialist Movement issued a press release condemning the firing of Pluss. The NSM officially condemns Fairleigh Dickinson University for engaging in acts of left-wing McCarthyism. This past Monday, Professor Jacque Pluss was removed from his teaching position apparently for no other reason than being a member of NSM. It is against every concept of the Constitution and the principles of our republic and an act of sheer stupidity for the powers that be to force anyone to leave job [sic] simply because of his/her legal political affiliations. If American universities truly stand for the market place of ideas, and of freedom of expression, then we must protect all, including Professor Jacques Pluss . . . We at the NSM also reali

OK, not really. At least, I'm not the one to do the defending. However I do call upon academia to do so. Last week Professor Jacques Pluss, a history professor at Fairleigh-Dickinson University, was fired for his political views. Pluss made several racist statements regarding Jews and blacks on a National Socialist web site. The university acted quickly and fired him. They were right, and within their rights, to do so. Contrast this with the quagmire of the Ward Churchill "firing" in Colorado. Churchill compared victims of 9/11 to "little Eichmanns", said "more 9/11's are necessary", and compared Indian reservations to Nazi concentration camps. He lied about serving in combat in Vietnam, has apparently lied about his Native American ancestry, and fraudulently passed off another person's art as his own. That's bad stuff. But Churchill is a leftist, and in the ultra-liberal world of academia, academics are loathe to call out one of their own.

President Bush hits the nail on the head: "The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life." While greatly saddened about this case, I'm overjoyed to have a president of this caliber. Would a President Kerry have signed the Schiavo bill after he vetoed it?