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of the Stansberry Investor Hour podcast. During our 49-minute conversation, he talked about the “endless death threats” just like this that he has gotten “from various groups” over the years... simply for speaking his mind. Through the years, Saad has paid for his views in other ways, too... For example, Saad told me that some of his colleagues send private e-mails in support of his views... but then refuse to associate with him in public for fear of retribution by students and other faculty members. Think about that... These other professors won’t speak their minds because they’re worried about the potential for (sometimes violent and often career-altering) payback. Saad grew up in Beirut and survived a civil war... He clearly has thicker skin than most academics. ‘Idea Pathogens’ By now, I hope you’re wondering what’s so horrible about Saad’s beliefs and speeches that cause him to suffer through death threats from protesters and ostracization from his peers. Saad is an outspoken critic of what he calls “idea pathogens”... And as he explained during our interview, he finds that most of these so-called idea pathogens are held by the political Left. (Before I go any further, let me be very clear... I’m not here to support or criticize the Left or the Right. Frankly, it’s all the same to me.
And it’s particularly ironic in this case because Saad is a Jewish man who literally fled from hate as a young child... leaving his home country of Lebanon in the mid-1970s as an 11-year-old to escape a civil war. Another speaker at the event, Dr. Oren Amitay, is a Jewish man married to a Japanese woman... And his sister and adopted brother are both gay. Yet as part of this planned event, these folks were accused of being racist peddlers of hate.
These other professors won’t speak their minds because they’re worried about the potential for (sometimes violent and often career-altering) payback.
Although the event was ultimately rescheduled, one of the speakers was uninvited. And that caused even more death threats against Saad, this time from another side... You see, the people who supported the original event thought Saad caused the disinvitation (which isn’t true, according to him). And they made threats on his life in retaliation. Saad, who is also a marketing professor at Concordia University in Montreal, said his life was turned upside down... He required constant protection, including security personnel escorting him around the Concordia campus, where he mostly stayed locked in his office. Saad recounted this story for a recent episode
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November 2020
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