It would appear that Ward "I never met a PC scam I couldn't run" Churchill's rights are better than mine. Via Belmont Club, I bring you this whack-job screed from the alternative-to-reality web hallucination infoslop.org:
Question #4: I'm glad I came here tonight; I've heard a lot more than I heard on the average sound bytes we've been hearing on the radio. I agree with some points, there are other points that I disagree with, but I do believe you have a constitutional right to say what you have to say. On the other hand, do you agree that the First Amendment rights for the people marching in the Columbus Day parade should be taken away, because that is their freedom of expression as well, and I'm one of those people.
Ward Churchill: Let me answer the man. No, I don't believe you have a First Amendment right because that bounces off against my Ninth Amendment right [emphasis added]. You know what my Ninth Amendment rights are? Do you know what the Ninth Amendment says?
Question #4: No, sir.
Ward Churchill: Yeah. Do we have a law professor in here? I think this is a lesson for law school, because I addressed another university auditorium with about this many people in it last week, and I posed the same question to the whole group. Professors, students, townspeople and all, not a soul, including law professors, could tell me what the damn Ninth Amendment said. [laughter] S'pose there might be a reason for that?
Question #4: Sir, sir, sirdoes that negate the First Amendment?
Ward Churchill: No, no, wait a minute; let's get an answer to it.
Audience Member: Basically it says that whatever rights were not given to federal government are given to the states.
Ward Churchill: Actually, wrong, beep. [laughter] What it says, in very close paraphrase, is that all rights not otherwise enumerated herein that are inherent in people are retained by them, OK? You can have a real entertaining time looking at the nature of those rights as articulated, and it can be rather nebulous and it can be debatable, but I'll tell you one place you can look where it's not debatable at all and that's in black letter legal articulation. That goes to human rights, particularly the articulation of international human rights that take the form of ratified treaties. Under Article Six of the Constitution of the United States, those are the supreme law of the land, and among them, are fundamental human dignity, OK? And celebration of the conditions that I was describing as pertaining to native people as an outcome of the process initiated by Christopher Columbus, celebrating that guy in any respect at all is a celebration of those conditions. That's a denial of fundamental human dignity, that's a denial of my Ninth Amendment rights and you don't have a right to do that, and you know exactly what you're doing. [applause]
So his right not to be offended trumps your right to free speech. If you're planning on saying anything publicly, and there's a chance Ward Churchill might be within listening distance, you'd better clear what you want to say with him first.
He's not done, though:
Question #7: I was just wondering, where do you get the gall to call the people who died in 9/11 technocrats, when you sit around and get a $90,000 paycheck from the government you purport to hate?First off, he didn't like the question, so he changed it into one he did like. Secondly, he didn't even answer that question. Thirdly, of course he wasn't going to allow a hostile followup question, and of course that was hypocritcal BS since he'd allowed followups to verbal blowjobs he'd gotten elsewhere in the Q&A (specifically, #6 and #9).
Ward Churchill: To answer the question, to answer the question yo, he's posed a question, I'll answer the question. And it really goes to the question of "hey, sucker, you consider yourself innocent?" No. You show me where I ever said. What I said was I tend to fly more on these gigs than the average American, making myself more susceptible to being strapped in a passenger seat on a 300,000 pound cruise missile. I've been every moment of my adult existence in flat-out opposition, in every way I knew, to the status quo of this country, but I have not changed it. And to that extent, I have not measured up to the responsibility, I am not innocent, and I'm subject to the same penalty, and that's the answer to your question, and you don't get a second. [applause]
Question #7: You do admit your hypocrisy?
Ward Churchill: Sit down. You barely don't understand the language, to understand, that was the opposite of hypocrisy. Over here, sir.
I just wish someone had asked him whether any of his artwork was original.
Posted by Chris at February 27, 2005 11:30 AM