Rebecca Hooker
Sep 9, 2018 · 2 min read

Actually, you’re wrong about all of the assumptions you have made about me. I’m a tenured professor at an institution that respects our academic freedom. I am in no way expected to stay within a certain range of views in my work.

It makes me sad when people pre-judge others in this way. I haven’t judged you. Perhaps it was the tone of my last post that made you think I felt that way. I apologize. My spouse tells me that sometimes my daily written correspondence has an edge to it. Perhaps he’s right.

Now to your questions. When I say your associates, it’s because I’m searching for a neutral word that won’t imply any bias toward or against what you and the people who agree with you believe. Associates may not be the right one, but that’s my intention. Friends seems somehow wrong, and any other word I’ve come up with has a negative connotation that I definitely don’t want to convey. These words don’t represent what I’m thinking, so they don’t apply.

When I say evidence, what I am asking for is something more direct than a reference to a site that gets its evidence from a man, who gets his evidence from another person’s book, etc. As I said in my previous email, I always look at primary documents in order to support my arguments or to test the arguments of others. At worst, I use secondary sources that directly reference the primary source. What one says about a text should be clearly evident in that text, even if it takes some interpretation to see that it’s there. This, I suppose, is an occupational hazard, but it also leaves no room for doubt or ambiguity. Either something is true or it’s not; it happened or it didn’t. You see my point. In terms of what you and I are discussing, for example, can you show me specific documents or recorded conversations between individuals (etc.) you know are involved in the deep state that make it clear they are in fact behind some of the events you believe they have caused to happen? That’s solid evidence. This is what I mean.

Maybe I am repeating this too often, but I am very serious about learning from you. I appreciate the time you are taking to talk with me.

Oh, one last thought. My job as an educator is to teach students critical thinking and writing skills. I am not required to indoctrinate them into any specific way of thinking, nor would I want to. Analyzing other people’s writing for the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments is essential to being a critical thinker, as is the ability to support one’s own position with careful, well-reasoned evidence that speaks directly to the issue one is addressing. This is what I teach my students. I don’t care what they believe, as long as they can use their thinking and writing skills to support their positions.

Have a good day. I hope you will be safe from the hurricane. I live in Virginia. I may not be so lucky.