9-11 Whackjobs for Stupidity

I heard James Fetzer of 9-11 Scholars for Truth speak today in Chicago, where he presented his nutty theories in a detailed form that makes me worry at how many people buy into these unbelievably stupid ideas. While the conversation sometimes strayed into other conspiracies (LBJ had JFK killed, Paul Wellstone was assassinated by a "directed energy weapon" used against his plane, and E. Howard Hunt was murdered via "pnemonia" this week), the 9-11 nonsense occupied plenty of time. This is truly the greatest conspiracy ever conceived. It makes "The Da Vinci Code" seem like a tame and totally believable tale by comparison.

But there is an important academic freedom issue here: when should someone be fired for being a moron? The problem here is that Fetzer, for example, calls for "objective and scientific" analysis of 9-11. Who will decide what opinions are merely unpopular and what views are legitimate to fire someone? The efforts to fire an instructor at Madison proved troubling, as did BYU forcing out professor Steven Jones. Actually, Fetzer has split from Jones (they're fighting over a domain name) because Jones thinks thermite explosives brought down the twin towers, while Fetzer concludes this is impossible and therefore suggests that it must have been destroyed by "lasers, masers, plasmoids," which might be the most idiotic theory ever conceived.