I love the smell of napalm in the morning

This is an excellent smackdown of this almost entirely incoherent protest letter.

For background, a bunch of professors wrote to protest the establishment (or at least the official U of Chicago participation in) the Milton Friedman institute. This is because, displaying their love for intellectual openness and diversity, they feel Milton Friedman is the devil and his ideas should be banned forever. I exaggerate. Somewhat.

At any rate, this John Cochrane fellow, who is apparently also on the faculty of U of Chicago but despite that apparently feels that being a scholar should entail clarity of writing and thought, not just signing on to the cause-du-jour, however inane, incoherent or counter to prior causes-du-jour, has written a response to the protest letter.

It is excellent and gives me hope for our future. The fact that he is one man and the signatories of the original document were legion, however, crushes that hope like the jaws of a child finishing off a gob-stopper.

(Got to this particular smackdown through the excellent Marginal Revolutions blog here)