Talk about Thomas Sowell’s vast history of continuously demolishing leftist nonsense
We’re not talking about THAT — we’re talking about THIS (and evading the question is a gross breach in the standards Sowell espouses).
I threw down the gauntlet and you have a choice: To ignore or engage. But I have another old-fashioned rule on that front:
Show up or shut up!
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
I’m not out to “DESTROY” Sowell . . .
Quite the contrary!
Just do what you say you do — and all will become clear.
I’m not just taking him to task because he’s got it comin’ — I need this guy. The ultimate irony is that blind loyalty limits him — while my criticism could elevate him to heights your hero-worship ensures he’ll never go.
So, you’re saying that your plan will elevate Sowell to worldwide recognition — by holding him accountable? That if he comes clean — he could be the catalyst to turn the tide?
That’s exactly what I’m saying
It won’t matter that he blew it on WMD or why — all that matters is having the guts to say:
I was wrong — and I’m trying to make it right
In a culture consumed with being right — wouldn’t it be refreshing to talk about the immeasurable value in the willingness to be wrong? Don’t just tell people how to behave:
Lead by example — especially when it comes at a cost!
Shouldn’t you abide by the principles upon which you put people on a pedestal — even if it knocks ’em off of it? Wouldn’t the genuine article want you to hold them accountable to their claims?
Admitting where he’s wrong will work wonders for where he’s right — which benefits everybody. Elevating him is not my aim, but I can live with it to stem the systematic self-delusion that’s taken this nation totally off the rails:
Right & Left
We’re well beyond “disagreement” in America — this is madness (countless millions miserably failing to follow even the most fundamental methods of how understanding works).
You make it nearly impossible to put a pinprick through the envelope of intransigence encasing your brain.
To conform to fact
We must agree that it was watermelon and consider what it means: Maybe nothing, maybe everything. But you pollute the debate when you won’t even acknowledge the irrefutable.
Worse than that — you poison your purpose:
On that front — and this one
Debunking the WMD delusion & Trayvon tale is a conduit for showing how this nation systematically derails debate.
“Everybody believed Iraq had WMD” is not a valid argument any more than “armed only with Skittles.” By the way — how many of you know what Trayvon actually looked like?
It’s not the kid on People magazine I assure you.
I’m not interested in defending Zimmerman — my aim is to expose the irrational behavior of blindly defending Martin and the damage you did by doing so.
The second you shun evidence that doesn’t fit the narrative you want — you have contaminated your judgment. How quickly you come to your conclusions — and what you’re willing to ignore to solidify them:
That is the underlying message of my efforts.
Give it a go
And I’ll be happy to show you the courtesy so few have shown me.
You can’t have “Compared to What?” without comparing what’s in question:
In the aftermath of 9/11 — the marquee material used to sell a war in the Middle East is as critical as comparison gets.
Shouldn’t any debate establish what the debate is actually about? What does it say about a country that can’t even establish that much on a matter of this magnitude?
By Design
America Remains Mired in the Murky
But since I don’t have situational rules — I see crap with crystal clear clarity:
The road to reality is blocked by detours designed to keep you going in circles. Purveyors of poppycock reroute you with narratives that avoid detail like Black Death.
The way out is to start with an inconsistency or two that’s narrow in scope — and take the trail where it leads.
To ascertain the truth on any topic
If you’ve got something concrete to go on — that’s your point of entry. By all means, keep the door open in every direction. But by nailing down the definitive first, it paves a clearer path to all the rest.
This country does the exact opposite on everything — lumping it all together and never even approaching where you should have started in the first place:
This chart is misleading in several respects . . . Beams centrifuge never actually worked . . . We can infer . . .
Sounds pretty sloppy to me
Perhaps we should have a conversation to clear up what all this means on issues that have eroded reason beyond recognition?
Which guy looks like he’s on point?
The rotor speed required to separate uranium isotopes doesn’t care who’s president, and when it comes to ascertaining the truth, neither do I.
In order to maintain such speeds, the material properties of centrifuges are as critical as it gets. You don’t need to interview a world-renowned nuclear scientist to figure that out — but I like to be thorough.
My surgical specificity in this clip puts this lie in its place in 5 minutes alone. As I said, I’m not out to “DESTROY” Sowell. But lemme put it in terms you’ll understand: If he stepped into a debate with me on this matter, the beating he’d take would be biblical.
If you think you can challenge me on that, I invite you to try. I’ve been inviting you for a really long time.
Trillion Dollar Tube
To take a story this complex and convoluted and boil its essence down to a few minutes was no small feat:
Imagine what I did with 160
“There is no skimming over the surface of a subject with [Hamilton]. He must sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on.”
— Major William Pierce (Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton)
Wouldn’t it be absurd to share that quote if my clip contained nothing but trite talking points? Some circles are not burdened by squaring their walk with their talk. They seem to think that advertising virtue equates to embodying it.
Case in point
People who talk glibly about “intelligence failure” act as if intelligence agencies that are doing their job right would know everything.
— Thomas Sowell
D.O.E’s standard is to spin a tube at 20% above 90,000 RPM before failure — so 48,000 short is a pretty loose definition of “rough indication.”
And since the entire point of testing should be to replicate the conditions of centrifuges, one would think that the full-blown testing would be performed before the N.I.E. was completed.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
Between Sowell’s words and mine
Which ones strike you as glib?
If I came into this cold — I’d know on the doc image alone that Sowell has no chance. At the very least, you should know by now that something’s not right.
I offered you overwhelming and irrefutable evidence in my documentary that exhaustively exposes the biggest and most costly lie in modern history — taking both parties to task for it. You refused to even glance at the doc while deriding my efforts with pleasure.
So with this site I tried another approach: Interweaving clips in conjunction with the behavior of those who slavishly defend the indefensible.
The documentary is structured to the hilt in 7 segments averaging 24 minutes apiece — so it’s much easier to digest.
But circular certitude is quite the convenient cop-out:
Allowing you to blow off the doc, dish your derision on issues you’re wildly unqualified on — then complain how you can’t follow the format of a site that wouldn’t be needed if you simply watched the doc in the first place.
Not the tiniest trace of reasoning can be found in anything I’ve come across in decades of dealing with the doubt-free on WMD.
And of all those I’ve challenged — their knowledge combined could fit into a thimble with space to spare.
At every turn, the faithful tap dance around reality — oily evading anything that requires them to hold him to his own standards.
- Repeat slogans: “Everybody believed Iraq had WMD”
- Question people’s motives: Bush hater, Bush basher, Bush Derangement Syndrome, Plamegate & plenty more. Adding to the arsenal of childish crap to continue the tradition: Snowflake, Libtard, Libturd, Cupcake, TDS, Demon-crat, Democrat Party
- Bold assertions: Russians said so, British said so, Bill Clinton said so, Leaders of both parties said so . . .
No coherent argument, Repeat slogans, Vent their emotions, Question people’s motives, Bold assertions:
A young man sittin’ on the witness stand
The man with the book says “Raise your hand”
“Repeat after me, I solemnly swear”
The man looked down at his long hair
And although the young man solemnly swore
Nobody seemed to hear anymore
And it didn’t really matter if the truth was there
It was the cut of his clothes and the length of his hair
What is Truth
Funny thing about information
It can seem incoherent when you don’t take any of it into account.
Would you browse a textbook then blame the teacher for your failure to understand the material? If you’re not gonna watch clips at the crux of the story, what’s the point?
That the decline of America over the last 30 years in the Gutter Games of Government — doesn’t unfold for standard scrolling with ease, is not a flaw in my argument and array of illustrations:
It’s a flaw in your willingness to work through it — absorbing each building block of information your brain is well-equipped to handle.
Or at least it used to be before information became so funneled in a fashion to your liking — you don’t even know what to do with anything that isn’t. It astounds me that wading through unfamiliar territory on this site is somehow seen as complicated as quantum physics.
I assure you
What it took to acquire this information was infinitely more demanding than anything you face here — let alone the complexities in exposing systematic deception at the core of our country’s ills.
What I Do Takes Work: Time and Effort to Think It Through
This — is entertainment . . .
A bit about work
Work is a Journey on Which You Welcome Challenge
Work does not instantly respond — work digs to discover and inquires to clarify. Work is difficult and demands discernment. Work wonders, pauses, listens, absorbs, and reflects.
Work does not rest on who’s right and who’s wrong: Work wants to know if there’s something more to see, something to learn, something that sharpens the mind. Work never stops building on the foundation of your own work and what you learn from the work of others.
Work works its way through material that is not easy.
Work recognizes complexity and the demands of in-depth explanation. Work will go on a trip to ideas that take time and effort to understand. Work knows that you can’t see your way through to a solution without understanding the different dimensions of a problem.
Work does not defend before you consider
Work does not race to conclusions — work arrives at them through careful consideration. Work is willing is rethink what you think you know. Work takes integrity, courtesy, curiosity, courage, and decency.
Work comes with the willingness to be wrong.
Work is not self-satisfied. Work does not sling snippets of certitude — work crafts argument on the merits. Work is an exchange where each party takes information into account. Work does not issue childish insults — work demands that you act your age.
You’ll find that work is far more fruitful and fulfilling than ease.
Work rises & falls
As this is the prism through which we work:
How we weigh what we see and measure our response. We’ll fall short from time to time — but those willing to work will keep each other in check.
Work respects your intelligence by using it.
And shows respect to others as we work our way to mutual respect. Work won’t be pretty and might even get ugly — but work will do what it takes to work it out.
And if you wanna start solving problems — work is what it’s gonna take.
Speaking of which
I’ve always hated Twitter and when I’m done doing what I gotta do — I’m never goin’ back. Until then, I’m sending out a certain set of messages looking for intelligent life (fiercely independent thinkers who want to solve problems — not endlessly talk about them).
Think of my signals as a poor man’s SETI:
I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth
Going by the galaxies filled with rock stars of reasoning across the social media universe — I should have no shortage of people eager to examine my idea and discuss how we could improve on it and proceed.
You tell me where those people are — and I’ll gladly send out my signals to them.
I don’t want to bother anybody — I’m just looking for a caliber of individuals I can’t find. You may not be that caliber — but you could be if you chose to be.
If you’re not interested in hearing me out and having meaningful conversation — we have nothing to talk about and I wish you well. I’d just ask that you block me and politely move along.
What I have in mind could turn the tide. I’ve already done all the work — I just need a little help in having it land in the right hands.
If you’re game, please contact me through the site or email Anchor.Press.gg@gmail.com, as I no longer respond to Tweets or superficial fragments of any kind.
I’ve made it pretty clear what I’m looking for — in one line alone:
I’m not looking for followers — I’m looking for leaders . . .
One picture is worth a thousand words
Which image below would you choose if you wanted to understand a fairly complex coding concept? For me, it’s whatever it takes to get me where I wanna go.
I wish I were smart enough to read the JavaScript language spec and pick it up all on my own. Then again, I love the demands of difficulty and overcoming obstacles.
But I can’t do it alone
I need the help of amazing minds from my multitude of sources that increasingly grows the more I learn and advance my skills.
When I returned to this topic awhile back, I almost got it in the first video. In the face of such phenomenal work (or any sincere effort, for that matter): It would be unthinkable for me to blame the source because I gotta work a little harder.
I was equally impressed by the 2nd video. He furthered my grasp on my question — and enhanced my overall understanding to boot. And the icing on the cake: He taught with this magical tool I’d never seen before.
This — is pure gold
3rd and 4th tries
Found that amazing graphic and a guy who ranks with the best I’ve ever seen in any discipline.
My gap paved the way to pay dirt — but only because I kept digging. Now I’m tapped into the internals, and I’ve got new tools to advance my knowledge on that front and many more.
The answer was there all along — I just needed to train my mind to see it.
Works the same way here
Einstein borrowed from the one below:
The worth of man lies not in the truth which he possesses, or believes that he possesses, but in the honest endeavor which he puts forth to secure that truth; for not by the possession of, but by the search after, truth, are his powers enlarged, wherein, alone, consists his ever-increasing perfection. Possession fosters content, indolence, and pride.
— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Are you telling me . . .
That I can grasp this — but you can’t grasp that?
What does it say to you that I occasionally use an alias for Sowell — just so his crowd will consider his claims in isolation from his immaculate image?
I call him PKIA
What would you call someone who shoots their mouth off without addressing the evidence — but banks on their fabricated reputation to create the impression that they did?
Just as the Condi cartoon captures what words cannot — so too does the implication behind the alias for this Professional Know-It-All. Sowell is worshipped as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes:
Never mind he peddled partisan hackery on the biggest and most costly lie in modern history — flagrantly ignoring irrefutable evidence of mathematical certainty.
And lo and behold, he has a habit of toeing the party line: All of which flies in the face of the principles upon which he’s put on a pedestal.
But who needs scruples when you’ve got an army of apologists to absolve you of anything that doesn’t comply with the PKIA Program.
Glenn Loury once called my writing “brilliant” and was “blown away” by my site and signed up, but he wasn’t too keen on the truth when I took his hero to task. More on Loury & McWhorter later — but for now:
There’s a thing about Sowell that isn’t often mentioned . . . he can step completely outside of the race thing and just express himself about just stuff — which is not the usual.
And I find it interesting that with Sowell — one reason some people today would find it hard to go with him is that he doesn’t write with that tribalist sense.
Weapons of Crass Obstruction
Sowell has a habit of headlines oozing in partisan pettiness.
On two of the biggest events in history — Sowell seems pretty tribal to me:
He’s trying to be purely objective and there’s nothing in him of — here’s what we down here think. Here’s what we’ve been through.
Desperate and Ugly in Florida
Weapons of Political Destruction
It’s not seasoned with any of that — he’s just trying to have a white lab coat on and look at the facts.
— John McWhorter
If his Crap is King claims on WMD isn’t “seasoned” to you, Mr. McWhorter — what is?
Hard to Imagine
And Damn Disappointing to Boot
It’s bad enough I gotta deal with unyielding yahoos who yearn to praise Sowell as if it’s a daily duty to broadcast his brilliance — while butchering his principles in practice:
But to see people I respected fall into the same trap — enabling their “National Treasure” and the echo chamber around him:
Good grief!
The crude, dirty “brutes” of the land of the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift. The Yahoos are irrational people and represent the worst side of humanity. By contrast, the wise and gentle Houyhnhnms, their masters, are rational horses and represent humanity at its best.
The likes of Loury & McWhorter see themselves as Houyhnhnms — as if they’re immune to irrational behavior in defense of their interests.
Take note of the trite & trendy language that follows: Strikingly in sync with Sowell’s, don’t ya think?
CIA is not the all knowing God of the Bible. The CIA could do everything 100% correct but still not know everything.
— Foot soldier in Sowell’s army & owner of opening quote
There’s another reason why they wouldn’t know everything: Nuclear scientists don’t work there — they work at the Department of Energy.
And that — is what this is all about
You’d know that had you watched Trillion Dollar Tube instead of trying to educate me on things you know nothing about.
Then tell me how he was wrong about one thing that he has no expertise in.
lemme get this straight
A layperson with limited resources and no connections:
- Can do countless hours of research & writing
- Interview a world-renowned nuclear scientist
- Correspond with Colin Powell’s chief of intelligence — along with a key physicist
- Spend $15,000 of his own money to write & produce the most detailed documentary ever done on WMD (taking both parties to task for it)
Qualifying me to exhaustively explain how half the country could not be more wrong on this issue of world-altering consequence.
But it’s all good . . .
That Sowell cranked out this crap that any Iraq War cheerleading jackass could issue in chain-letter lies — topped off with smug sloganeering.
After all — he doesn’t have any expertise in it.
You introduce statements and arguments of people who aren’t Sowell
As this story is also
About the behavior of the echo chamber around Sowell — it’s kinda necessary to include other people to properly illustrate the problem.
And I wouldn’t mind explaining everything — if you thought about anything.
Even in the most unsophisticated years of my youth, I would have never bought something so impossibly simplistic as Sowell’s “said so and so” — and the Right’s ubiquitous belief that “everybody believed Iraq had WMD.”
My mind would never allow me to accept something so easily.
I don’t know how people find the path of least resistance so satisfying — as I love the demands of difficulty and discernment.
To not step up my game in the midst of opportunity or challenge — would be tantamount to treason upon my very existence.
His disciples have no interest in such a demanding way of life — as defending the faith is all that matters in the religious-like following around Sowell. They spread the gospel by mindlessly countering with boilerplate beliefs that have no bearing on the issues in question.
What works with them would never fly with me.
If you oversimplify an issue that clearly calls for careful examination, I know you’re hiding something. If you constantly complain about the other side and defend your own at every turn — you’re not playing by the rules you rail on others for failing to follow.
Occasional criticism of your own party doesn’t qualify as having a history faithful to objective scrutiny.
Sowell has a cult-like following unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something. This hero-worship horseshit has gotten totally out of hand:
Like everything else in a nation that’s lost its mind . . .
As a distinguished scholar once said: “The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.”
— Thomas Sowell
Simply by virtue of writing those words — he couldn’t possibly do the same in service of his own interests?
I’ve never continued to believe anything to be true that was demonstrably false. If I’m wrong — I wanna know and I’ll openly admit it.
I’d rather feel foolish for 5 minutes than be a fool for a lifetime.
I find changing my mind to be magical — that you can think one thing, take new information into account, and think another. It’s fantastic.
The author of this article has no such notion.
Throughout this post, I’m gonna dismantle a key claim in the piece, along with fundamental flaws in its premise, and his refusal to consider anything as he denied the obvious with ease.
When it comes to ascertaining the truth — I don’t care what your cause is, who’s in the White House, who controls Congress or the courts. I learned early on in life that what you want gets in the way of what you see.
There is no amount of gain you could give me to believe something to be true that is false. When warranted, I will defend those I despise and call out those I like.
I call a spade a spade, period
I love moments of truth and measurement that put my principles to the test. One of my favorites is the Florida election fiasco of 2000. I just wanted the right thing to be done — whether it served my interests or not was irrelevant.
That sense of fairness is so foreign I might as well be speaking another language.
What I have witnessed over the last 2 years takes that to a whole other galaxy of gutting the truth with glee. As predictable as day and night:
Sowell’s crowd would counter my title with claims that comfort them — evading that critical thinking comes with how you handle the uncomfortable. I emailed the author of that article and got exactly what I expected in response:
Not a trace of reasoning or even an attempt to argue on the merits — as he wants to rig reality to conform to his calcified convictions.
A lot of that goin’ around
You don’t really need to find out what’s goin’ on
You don’t really wanna know just how far it’s gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry . . .
We can do “The Innuendo,” we can dance and sing
When it’s said and done, we haven’t told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
In the Crap is King culture we’ve created:
Infantile insults are celebrated
The doubt-free who don’t do their homework are the experts. Those who belittle and outright reject correction — are the righteous and wise. The ones with courage to admit when they’re wrong — are the weak. Tireless dedication is mercilessly mocked — while intellectual laziness is esteemed.
Original thinking and uniqueness are bashed — while conforming to the trite is trumpeted. Depth is discarded with disdain — while shallowness is embraced with love.
The honest & sincere are shunned — while manipulators & liars are welcomed with open arms.
This is my story — and if you read it in full, you’ll find it’s part of your story too. You’ve all dealt with the same behavior I have — the difference is that I get it from every direction:
A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on
That quote’s been around in various forms for over 300 years (evidently the original being from 1710):
Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect.
I know the feeling — all too well
This image is especially fitting for the times — since it’s a myth popularized by Washington Irving and others. According to The Flat Earth Myth:
The real myth is the idea that anyone ever believed in a flat earth.
“Bias” gets all the press
When prejudice is paramount to the problem. If it were just bias, convincing you with overwhelming and undeniable evidence might still be difficult — but you’d be willing to be convinced.
Prejudice doesn’t roll that way. In fact, it doesn’t roll anywhere — as you don’t budge one bit, and take pride in it, no less.
As a friend comically put it:
It’s not “Pride and Bias”
Anyone wanting to know the truth would not behave in ways that ensure they never will.
Simply asserting that my scrutiny applies to all of America is meaningless without a record that squares with that claim. If you scanned my site and saw it was almost entirely one-sided — what would you call it?
And if you called me out on that hypothetical hypocrisy — and I started qualifying my claim with, “Well, I just used the map of America, I didn’t mean every state.” And “a lot of that goin’ around” didn’t mean what it clearly implies.
What would you call that?
And when that call came by its right name — how infuriating would you find me crying foul on your “mudslinging”?
Lara walked along the tracks following a path worn by pilgrims and then turned into the fields. Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower-scented air of the broad expanse around her. It was dearer to her than her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book. For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life.
She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name, or, if this were not within her power, to give birth out of love for life to successors who would do it in her place.
― Doctor Zhivago (referenced in Into the Wild)
One of the finest examples I’ve ever seen is by Thomas Sowell himself — well-crafted common sense calling Trump’s behavior by its right name. What he wrote about him below is undeniably true, and no matter how times someone wrote something undeniably false:
I’ll honor each instance of truth.
Since my story on Sowell takes both parties to task (including very specific culpability on the current president), when I say, “I don’t care about the politics of putting Trump in his place” — you can take that to a Swiss bank.
In case that’s not clear enough . . .
Despite my disgust in Trump for embodying the cancer that America has become: If the truth I have to tell brought down the Democratic Party and put him right back in office, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
As I said in my doc:
You can’t seem to comprehend that I don’t care what damage the truth inflicts upon politicians of any brand. I have this crazy idea that across-the-board accountability is always in the best interests of the nation.
As for my frustration — I have this thing about people who regurgitate nonsense in the face of overwhelming evidence that counters their baseless beliefs.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
How can you expect anyone to admit when they’re wrong if you won’t? And every time you allow emotion to run roughshod over reason, you further calcify habits at the other end of the spectrum from these:
Rather than assert that all opinions are equal, students in seminar learn to judge opinions on the basis of the reasons given for those opinions.
Nobody ever had to explain that to me. I’m sure you all feel the same:
And yet here we are
Back to the opening article
What can we establish about the bit below?
Sowell is possibly the most fascinating and productive scholar in the world.
I say that not as a junior colleague of Sowell (I am a mere 69), but as someone who has studied his work for 44 years. His scholarship covers a wide range of issues: income inequality, ethnic differences in economic performance, economic geography, poverty and economic growth, the destructive effects of the welfare state, the effects of affirmative action, the role of knowledge and information in decisions, incentives within the political system and within academia, and, more recently, the performance of charter schools.
First off, he’s heavily invested in seeing Sowell in the light that those 44 years have shown him.
Secondly, “the role of knowledge and information in decisions” is on the table.
Seems like evidence claimed as components for building a nuclear bomb (to manufacture a war in the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11) — qualifies for consideration.
Don’t ya think?
You’ve probably heard of yellowcake — how about uranium hexafluoride? Does calling someone a “Bush hater” strike you as a valid counter to that question?
What does it say to you that on an issue involving an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter — the “debate” was hijacked by 10-second sound bites?
About that mathematical certainty . . .
This gem is just priceless:
So, on an issue involving the separation of uranium isotopes — you wanna ignore the evidence to show off your math skills by splitting hairs over the meaning of “mathematical certainty”?
by the way
Decorating your points with special punctuation does not make meaningless crap magically have merit.
You can’t even imagine the mountain of spectacularly stupid shit I have seen over 20 years.
I point you to a 7-part, 2 hours and 40 minutes doc — that distills a story that demanded a massive amount of effort, thought, research, and writing:
And you tap a Tweet with a talking point or two — thinking you can inform me.
How many laypeople have you ever come across who wrote and produced a documentary? In 2 decades of challenging people on these issues and others, I’ve never met a single one. What road have you taken to lose sight of such things deserving of at least a little respect?
A modicum of courtesy perhaps? Doing your homework used to count for something. How about we just start with that?
Respect is not my concern
But if you showed some — it might be just enough to crack open a conduit to this quaint thing called conversation.
Every once in a blue moon — someone allows for that by taking a moment to reconsider. Not long before this Tweet — this guy was condemning my efforts like all the rest that day.
And then he opened the doc . . .
Yellowcake to UF6 Conversion to Uranium Enrichment:
When you see what Sowell said on the subject — ask yourself if his words comport with the claim below:
The one constant on display through all these topics is an irrepressible mind digging through the data in order to understand the complex reality underneath. His intellectual process, plus his ability to write quickly, have resulted in dozens of books and hundreds upon hundreds of newspaper columns that have helped many of us learn.
What can we establish on the above? Professor Henderson likes to learn — so shedding light on Sowell with new information should be welcomed by someone touting “the role of knowledge and information in decisions.”
His findings for 44 years shaped his solidified perception of Sowell — but what if he only went looking for what he wanted to find?
A lot of that goin’ around too!
Secondly, “the one constant” does not strike me as a claim that comes with caveats.
Does this book cover imply he’s a Maverick only on the pages within? Of course not, it’s suggesting a way of life — and no rational person would argue otherwise.
Just as no rational person would contort the definition of “constant” by restricting it to the domain that isolates Sowell’s history to what serves you:
I focused on the issues where he really did dig through the data.
By that standard, I can isolate O.J. Simpson’s character to the football field and ignore that little matter of murder. So, we’ve gone from “irrepressible mind digging through the data” to “I just meant where he really did.”
A.K.A. Changing the Rules:
Right on cue | Never fails
Sowell had his own moves in mind . . .
Funny how none of ’em went anywhere near the evidence on WMD or anything else on that fiasco for the ages.
And about that “ability to write quickly” . . .
It’s pretty easy when you leave everything out that matters. If you opened Sowell’s piece (all 752 words of a 2-minute read) — knowing that I did a 7-part series that’s 2 hours and 40 minutes.
On that alone
What goes through your mind? Moreover, Sowell’s article makes no mention of the evidence on display with the props.
So one guy goes into great detail — and the other guy doesn’t go anywhere in detail.
The famous one, naturally
And while you’re at it — butcher the bedrock beliefs he’s famous for (just as he did).
Hard to Imagine:
That I have to explain that quote to people who seemingly live to flood the internet with his words.
He and his flock incessantly complain about the media — and they don’t make policy. But the second I scrutinize Sowell — suddenly you have new standards.
180 — how fitting
And without even the most basic insight into anything on this story: His camp has a habit of glossing over global issues of catastrophic consequences with:
“Seems”
When you have no idea what the argument is (making no effort or inquiry to understand, no less):
Wrapping quotes around “argument” is as ridiculous as using air quotes incorrectly.
To claim that Iraq WMD wasn’t a lie should be like saying we didn’t land on the moon.
As I wrote and produced the most exhaustive doc ever done on WMD, I would know. And David Albright: The physicist who wrote extensively on the tubes — would know even better:
I defy you to find a single instance of anyone on the Right even attempting to make an argument on the dimensions, material, and quantity of the tubes.
You’ll be lucky to find them mentioned at all.
You think it’s just a coincidence that all the “arguments” on the Right just happen to follow the same pattern (conveniently leaving out the marquee claim on a mushroom cloud)?
That — all by itself, speaks volumes:
To anyone who thinks world-altering wars are more important than whining about websites that expose painfully obvious lies, anyway.
One picture is worth a thousand words. When you don’t want the pictures and you don’t want the words — what would you have me do?
And once I did it
We both know your next move . . .
And you get away with it with ease — as you’ve got friends aplenty playing in a cesspool of certitude:
Where you can promote principles in one breath and abandon them the next.
Or as I coined it
The individual believer must have social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence we have specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, we would expect the belief to be maintained and the believers to attempt to proselyte or to persuade nonmembers that the belief is correct.
These five conditions specify the circumstances under which increased proselyting would be expected to follow disconfirmation.
— When Prophecy Fails
The Russians said so.
The British said so.
Bill Clinton said so.
Leaders of both political parties said so.
“The British said so”?
What Bill Clinton said is entirely irrelevant to the tubes:
That Sowell never bothered to address — or anything else of substance in this saga of endless absurdity.
So there’s that — and this:
The Right ripped Bill Clinton to shreds and seemingly lives to assail democrats — and yet Sowell cites their word as solid gold.
That — is a magician’s maneuver . . .
Well, if they “said so” — it must be true.
So when people you despise ostensibly agree with you — it’s gotta be true, because they’d never do such a thing if it weren’t.
That’s it? . . .
Who cares about mathematical certainty in centrifuge physics when you’ve got the word of people who lie for a living?
It couldn’t possibly be that your enemy has ulterior motives themselves?
Nobody nails Democrats better than Glenn Greenwald’s gold-standard from a 2008 article on Salon.com:
Here we have a perfect expression of the most self-destructive Democratic disease which they seem unable to cure. More than anything — they fear looking weak. To avoid this, they cave, surrender, capitulate — and stand for nothing.
Flagrantly failing to account for motive in Sowell’s “said so and so” in the environment below — is as insulting to your intelligence as it gets.
Never mind it’s all meaningless in the context of the tubes.
George W. Bush was one of the last to say so. Yet he alone is accused of lying.
— Thomas Sowell
I don’t play those games, Mr. Sowell:
They all lied
Some circles call that evidence — I call it cowardice
And don’t you find it suspicious that someone of Sowell’s caliber is gonna come right out of the gate with something so weak as:
What are the known facts about Saddam Hussein’s chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons? We know that, at one time or other, he was either developing or producing or using such weapons.
Immediately followed by:
Back in 1981 . . .
So you found one small crack in Sowell’s character where he defended Iraq having WMD, does that hurt his credibility?
This man muddied the waters of debate to serve himself — on a little matter of war in the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11. Factoring for his history of hypocrisy and lying on that — along with ripping the Left while shamelessly ignoring the debauchery on the Right:
That “one small crack” is a wide-open window into his character and credibility.
Lo and Behold
In addition to interviewing world-renowned nuclear scientist, Dr. Houston Wood, I also corresponded with David Albright and Colin Powell’s chief of intelligence at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Greg Thielmann said the following in 2013:
It will be up to Iraqis to debate whether their country now has a brighter future than it otherwise would have had without foreign invasion and occupation in the first decade of the new century. But it is uniquely incumbent on Americans to understand who and what were responsible for an enterprise that proved so costly in terms of U.S. lives lost, money spent, international reputation tarnished, and a campaign against al Qaeda diverted.
America just casually moved on
I didn’t — as I knew then what few know now:
The immeasurable value in the willingness to be wrong, understanding why, and looking to learn from it. And that not doing so — increasingly compounds the consequences of no accountability.
When I was growing up, it was inconceivable that America would become a country that tap dances around reality on a daily basis:
Delighting in contempt for correction.
A go-to tactic of the doubt-free is to make damn sure the debate never reaches the merits of the matter. I’ve seen highly intelligent people derail discussions by claiming that “everything’s just an opinion.”
Nobody really believes that — it’s just a cop-out.
And if you call ‘em on it, they fall back on Old Faithful — “agree to disagree.” How this hijacked-for-hackery ethic caught on over the years can be charted with the times:
Where things that once meant something, now mean nothing.
The United States is now a country obsessed with the worship of its own ignorance. . . . [W]e’re proud of not knowing things. Americans have reached a point where ignorance, especially of anything related to public policy, is an actual virtue. To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to insulate their increasingly fragile egos from ever being told they’re wrong about anything.
It is a new Declaration of Independence: no longer do we hold these truths to be self-evident, we hold all truths to be self-evident, even the ones that aren’t true. All things are knowable and every opinion on any subject is as good as any other.
We no longer have those principled and informed arguments. The foundational knowledge of the average American is now so low that it has crashed through the floor of “uninformed,” passed “misinformed” on the way down, and is now plummeting to “aggressively wrong.” People don’t just believe dumb things; they actively resist further learning rather than let go of those beliefs.
I was not alive in the Middle Ages, so I cannot say it is unprecedented, but within my living memory I’ve never seen anything like it.
— The Death of Expertise
I know the feeling — all too well
On the title alone, if I came across this and hadn’t done my homework — my first thought would be:
I must be missing something pretty big . . .
Alas, you have other ideas . . .
Button your lip and don’t let the shield slip
Take a fresh grip on your bulletproof mask
And if they try to break down your disguise with their questions
You can hide hide hide behind Paranoid Eyes
If I came into this cold — I’d know on the doc image alone that Sowell has no chance. If you don’t know that by now, I don’t know what to tell ya.
But I suggest you try this on for size:
Anyone entering this discussion with sincerity — would come away realizing that there is no debate, and there never was.
They just made it up
The Right wants the Left and the black community to get its act together on matters deeply woven into the fabric of America’s long history of brutality and disgrace:
Slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, murder, decades of civil rights violations, questionable shootings, and so on.
While the Right won’t even look at the material properties of a tube. What’s wrong with that picture — and this one?
Hmm, so the dimensions exactly match the tubes used in Iraq’s history of manufacturing the Nasser-81mm artillery rocket (a reverse-engineered version of the Italian Medusa)
That sounds worthy of consideration — don’t ya think?
Not to Sowell’s camp
And their kin who came before them:
It is as though with some people — those who most avidly embrace the “we are right” view — have minds that are closed from the very get-go, and they are entirely incapable of opening them, even just a crack.
There is no curiosity in them. There are no questions in their minds. There are no “what ifs?” or “maybes.”
— Laura Knight-Jadczyk
And about that “mudslinging” . . .
Fact:
truth verifiable from experience or observation
If you have a history of hypocrisy and lying — you are a hypocrite and a liar. If you don’t like being called those things, don’t do those things. But so typical of the times — nothing has meaning anymore.
Calling criticism “mudslinging” is just somethin’ to say to escape scrutiny.
And the irony is
I’ve received almost nothing but mudslinging for decades — by people who cry foul with counterfeit claims on what they do for real. And let’s face it: You need it to be mudslinging, because if it’s not — your beliefs are gonna fall apart.
This mountain of information was publicly available before he wrote that article — and not one word about it.
How do you reconcile that?
What does it say to you that I occasionally use an alias for Sowell — just so his crowd will consider his claims in isolation from his immaculate image?
And what does it say to you that I’d be shocked if one of these people ever replies with anything even remotely in the realm of Anna Quindlin’s inquiry below?
Then again, I’d be shocked by anyone willing to reconsider anything in the realm of politics anymore. Even on concrete evidence crushing aluminum tubes or aluminum cans:
All you care about is getting what you want — and Anything Goes to get it.
To learn to ask: ‘Is that true?’
Maybe there’s something to what she just said. Let me think about it. That’s interesting. Maybe I should change my mind.’” . . .
When is the last time you can honestly remember a public dialogue — or even a private conversation — that followed that useful course?
Professor Henderson has no such notion of intellectually honest inquiry (or even putting in a modicum of effort):
Subject: Re: “The one constant on display through all these topics is an irrepressible mind digging through the data in order to understand the complex reality underneath”
Dear Mr. Memmer,
Thanks for your email.
I have the sense from it that you think that I made an incorrect statement. Is that what you’re saying? If so, what is that statement? Is it the one in your subject line? And, if so, please give me the link to the piece in which I add it.
Best,
David
Translation
I’m not going to consider anything you have to say — but let’s circle back to my article so I can confine the “conversation” in a way that allows me to “insist on ‘affirmation independent of all findings’” (borrowing from Peck who borrowed from Buber).
And about “I have the sense”:
If someone sent me an email that included the excerpts below — I’d have helluva lot more than a “sense” that I “made an incorrect statement.”
Even if everything you know about Thomas Sowell is true, your claim of his “constant” is false. I can demonstrably prove it using the very principles upon which he’s put on a pedestal.
And since my email included a link — I’d wanna know what’s in it so I could establish a baseline understanding of what this is all about.
In understanding that — the professor would see for himself how Sowell’s record doesn’t sync with his fabricated reputation.
And that’s a fact
Even if the “constant” claim in the context of “the role of knowledge and information in decisions” wasn’t in his article — wouldn’t you want to know that Sowell’s not the follower of facts he claims to be (on matters of world-altering consequence, no less)?
And his first clue on the subject-line question . . .
Should have been when I explicitly spelled it out in the opener:
Which words below sound like someone in the subject line?
D.O.E’s standard is to spin a tube at 20% above 90,000 RPM before failure — so 48,000 short is a pretty loose definition of ‘rough indication.’ . . . Out of 31 tubes in subsequent testing, only one was successfully spun to 90,000 RPM for 65 minutes — which the C.I.A. seized on as evidence in their favor.”
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
People who talk glibly about “intelligence failure” act as if intelligence agencies that are doing their job right would know everything.
— Thomas Sowell
Inside of 60 seconds
I’d know that something’s not right . . .
And that is what I’d be interested in — not weaseling my way out of my words so I could deny the obvious.
No way in the world I need someone to remind me of my own words on the “the role of knowledge and information in decisions” — and require explanation as to why it matters in the context of my claims.
And in response to this:
This is your counter? . . .
To copy & paste what I already know from your article — then top it off with this utterly ridiculous “inquiry” (without an atom of courtesy or courage to consider any of my questions first).
What do you notice is missing from the topics I mentioned? Anything about foreign policy. I focused on the issues where he really did dig through the data.
That’s twice he’s breezed right by my questions and brazenly ignored links to the most exhaustive work ever done on Iraq WMD. I know the type — as I’ve been practically spit on for telling undeniable truth for 20 years:
By people who couldn’t craft a sound argument on the subject to save their lives. And right on cue in response to my arguments countering his asinine assertions:
Anything Goes for apologists trying to preserve what they perceive. I know their Rolodex of Ridicule rabbit-hole routine — all too well.
And Now for the Weather
Then there’s this . . .
Just how much of an “Intellectual Giant” could you be and blow it on something this big and glaringly obvious? This isn’t about intelligence, it’s about ulterior motives.
But wouldn’t an intellectual giant have the foresight to see the inherent holes in his motives? That however well-intentioned they might be, catastrophic consequences tend to come with endless lying and ineptitude.
Not to mention the poison of partisanship to absolve it all — running the nation into the ground while you’re at it.
At what point does it dawn on you and your beloved Sowell — that blind loyalty to that cause would predictably damage your others?
Ya know . . .
Like creating the conditions for the rise of the Rock Star — who took race relations totally off the rails (paving the way for woke as well).
True folly, Tuchman found, is generally recognized as counterproductive in its own time, and not merely in hindsight. In Tuchman’s template, true folly only ensues when a clear alternative path of action was available and ruled out.
— Russ Hoyle, Going to War
I’m not an intellectual giant
Yet I figured this out all by myself (and put the writing on the wall):
Nobody nailed Obama better than Matt Damon:
A one-term president with some balls . . . [would have been] much better
The moment Obama caved on the Democratic Party playbook on race — he put Trump on the path to the presidency.
It’s quite possible that Comey’s cover-his-ass actions in the 11th hour tipped the scales. Given the possibility that a single event like that could alter the atmosphere of an election — what do you think pouring fuel on the fire for years did?
If the indiscriminate approach of BLM pisses me off: What do you think it did for people gunning to bring Obama down?
You overplayed your hand
He had golden opportunities to take the country forward, but instead of leading the way — he followed his base and went backwards. Given the tight margins — there’s not a doubt in my mind that their ploys put Trump in the White House.
And still — you don’t learn
At the core of our country’s decline — is the unrelenting refusal to get to the bottom of anything.
Like this 1619 business: You wanna draw correlations from the past — while flagrantly ignoring crystal-clear connections in the present. Black Lives Matter, monuments, kneeling, and now this?
You’re all over the place — and you’ve got company:
Blind Men Touching an Elephant
As with Kaepernick’s kneeling, Black Lives Matter, and the removal of monuments — what are you really gonna gain out of 1619? Even if you could miraculously get what you want:
And you have a better chance of walking on water.
What’s it gonna take for you to see the unintended consequences that come with it?
Therein lies the folly of it all. This consortium of causes has no chance of achieving anything remotely in the realm of your loosely defined aims — and you’re doing catastrophic damage to the very thing you’re trying to remedy.
Has it ever occurred to anyone in BLM — that simply calling it something else would have served your interests far better?
All Lives Matter . . .
How could you not see that tit for tat in taglines coming? You predictably damaged the debate on the name alone.
And now, even now
The cat . . . TOTALLY out of the BAG!
The Right’s gone out of its mind but they’re right on the money on this impossibly stupid pampering:
I don’t see what the problem is
— Typical Tweeter tapping earth-shattering insight
You don’t see — a lot!
Your track record is not what I would call astute — and the Right doesn’t have anything to write home about either.
The people who consider themselves to be the saviors of black people — are hurting black people, because what they’re committed to is more virtue signaling than actually doing something in the world.
— John McWhorter
“Enslaved People”
It’s not the change in terms that bothers me so much:
It’s the absence of intellectually honest discussion by people preoccupied with victories in vocabulary.
When I am making my edits, “John’s slave” becomes “a person enslaved by John.” “John owned Sally” becomes “John enslaved Sally.” . . .
Good grief!
Consider this sentence: “George Washington owned slaves at Mount Vernon.” It doesn’t agitate our sense of morality as much as the sentence “George Washington enslaved people at Mount Vernon,” does it? To most people, it seems much worse to say, read, or hear that someone “enslaved” other people than that they “owned” other people.
That’s partially because ownership is one of the primary rights and most cherished ideas in the American system — and most Western systems — of government.
I’m not among “most”
And on what basis is she making the claim that “most people” see it that way?
“Owned” has an ugliness that “enslaved” does not — precisely because we know it’s not a “primary right” to own people. Such efforts are really reaching to re-engineer what cannot be undone.
All this over-the-top engineering of sensitivity has gotten totally out of hand. Excessive sensitivity breeds hypersensitivity. When you water things down to be politically correct, our nation’s ability to discern decreases right along with it:
Creating a culture that’s increasingly more easily offended and radically irrational . . .
Across the board
Jesus Christ — it just never ends. The Right went out of its mind, but the Left helped them with this horseshit:
And don’t even get me started on how homelessness is a problem perpetuated by those most sensitive in their approach to solving it. If you wanna start solving problems instead of perpetuating them, it’s gotta get ugly.
Or as ol’ Bill perfectly put it:
On that note
Marching to Black Lives Matter with the first black president sitting in the White House — was that a smart move?
The answer should be abundantly clear — and yet the question is not even considered: In a culture too busy Tweeting to pause long enough for . . .
I’ve been blocked by people on Twitter for just politely suggesting that BLM is a counterproductive cause. Instead of considering how you could fight for justice more intelligently, you act like I’m saying you shouldn’t fight for it at all.
And since I can’t even get a “hmm . . .” out of anyone on anything — what do you think my chances are for something in the spirit of these:
Fuhgetaboutit
Dealing on the Moment
Is What America Does Best
Arrival is a movie that makes you think — and that’s a gift that keeps on giving.
Their efforts to develop a conduit of communication is in striking contrast to how we talk to each other today. With the word “HUMAN” written on a whiteboard, they were able to build on that by seeing patterns in indecipherable symbols.
We have the most sophisticated communication tools in history — and we can’t even talk to each other in the same language.
Instead of listening and learning — slinging snippets of certitude has become America’s pastime. We’ve created a knee-jerk nation where discernment is derided and negligence is in vogue. What was beyond the pale in the past is now perfectly acceptable.
There was a time when adults acted their age. Those days are long gone — as the internet and the cable clans paved the way for the onslaught of the utterly absurd.
We’re in perennial pursuit of ideologies — warfare waged with:
opinions lightly adopted but firmly held . . . forged from a combination of ignorance, dishonesty, and fashion
— Life at the Bottom
The Yellow Brick Road is the path of America’s pursuits — and how systematic oversimplification has taken over to the point where inconvenient correlations are condemned as convoluted.
And any attempt to have a conversation on issues that clearly call for careful consideration — is hijacked by baseless beliefs beaten into your brain as bedrock fact.
From decades of being increasingly accommodating of liars aligned with your interests:
You kept lowering the bar
And Now There is No Bar
And on that note
In the aftermath of 9/11 — did Thomas Sowell have motive to lie in order to support his party in the invasion of Iraq?
I asked that question to the guy running The Genius of Thomas Sowell podcast — and he wouldn’t even acknowledge what could not be more obvious.
For all these geniuses you love to laud — you sure aren’t learning much.
Speaking of motive
The.Deal.Is.That.We.Connect.These.Dots . . .
You see
Imagine!
There are powerful forces that make damn sure you don’t.
I’d love to . . .
And I’d ask her to explain this — and a great deal more:
Associated Press, October 3rd, 2004: Rice said she learned of objections by the Energy Department only after making her 2002 comments.
Richard W. Memmer: Are we to believe that the National Security Advisor of the United States was unaware of an intelligence dispute of this magnitude that had been going on for well over a year?
One Congressional investigator went so far as to call it a holy war. And doesn’t it strike you as suspicious that she didn’t bother consulting the D.OE. before serving up images of a nuclear detonation?
— Act II
Two themes emerge from [Professor Henderson’s] writing: (1) that the unintended consequences of government regulation and spending are usually worse than the problems they are supposed to solve.
— Hoover Institution
But spending and unintended consequences didn’t cross your mind on this $2.2 trillion fiasco for the ages?
And with all the wisdom in Sowell’s fancy quotes to float — this “intellectual giant” couldn’t see that coming either?
In the film, Larry Elder describes Sowell as the “greatest contemporary living philosopher and notes that he causes people to “rethink their assumptions.” Rethinking and questioning our assumptions has long been en vogue in the academy, and if you really listen to what he has to say, few scholars will make you rethink your assumptions like Sowell will. If you’re looking for a one-hour introduction to one of the great minds of the last century, Common Sense in a Senseless World is exactly that.
— Art Carden
Next to zero
Number of Sowell’s followers willing to “rethink their assumptions” — about the “greatest contemporary living philosopher” who “causes people to ‘rethink their assumptions.’”
In trying to tell this story to interconnected communities that fawn over this fraud — they’ve shared their values with venom. But it’s the impossibly stupid replies that disgusts me the most:
You introduce statements and arguments of people who aren’t Sowell
As this story is also
About the behavior of the echo chamber around Sowell — it’s kinda necessary to include other people to properly illustrate the problem.
And I wouldn’t mind explaining everything — if you thought about anything.
Rock Stars of Reasoning:
You couldn’t carry Sowell’s jockstrap!
Seriously? Get a life. It doesn’t matter what you say, he’s better than you basically in everything.
You deserved to be treated that way! You’re a moron and pathetic character assassin
Your reply shows me you have no such experience and knowledge. You played yourself, and you lost. Sorry, read some Thomas Sowell
And those are on the mild end of the savagery I’ve seen.
Almost makes me miss the good ol’ days of garden-variety Bush apologists — when at least their contempt for the truth was in the theatre of war.
Sowell’s disciples defend him before they even know what the subject matter is. They’re a whole other breed of bullshitters who butcher reality while incessantly bitching about others doing the same.
Bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant.
— Blurb to On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt
These people think they’re part of some revolution in reason by ceaselessly Tweeting the tenets of Thomas Sowell.
Never mind they instantly abandon them the second he’s under scrutiny.
It’s just pathetic
I’m showing you the legacy he’s leaving behind — and there’s no way this is what he wanted. I don’t know much about him — but I’m betting he’d be embarrassed by what’s happening in his name.
He’s a well-manned guy on the whole — and these people are acting like animals to honor him.
Fighting the problems of today with conventional tactics is colossally counterproductive, dangerous, and even deadly. But almost everyone is operating on faith-based belief that their efforts will prevail:
Bolstered by the fact that they’ve achieved some fashion of success.
I suggest you reconsider . . .
The solution to this problem is more truth, not less
No, it’s not
You cannot forever beat something into the ground and think that will magically make a dent someday. And even if by some miracle it does, wouldn’t you want to know if you could have cut out years or even decades had you been smart about it?
If you lose elections and laws — then fight to win back the former so you can reinstate the latter: Wouldn’t you want to know how you could have avoided it all in the first place?
Imagine if you had listened to the person telling you all along.
At the core of why my efforts don’t compute — is that my mission is not driven by changing your values, but rather the manner in which you pursue them.
Repeatedly rehashing issues is not the mark of problem solving:
It’s the mark of a market
I’m sure it’s intoxicating to amass a following and feel like you’re making a difference. But I’m gonna weigh your impact partly as a reflection of your community: How people behave — not what they believe.
If you can’t get that right, I don’t care how big your following gets — you’re taking this nation nowhere. Not in the right direction, anyway.
However sincere these purveyors of virtue may be (some of whom I largely agree with on their primary purpose) — their approach is not working and never will.
On the very principles pushing their popularity — I should have no trouble offering my arguments and ideas for consideration (especially since I’m trying to help them and the nation).
As my efforts don’t instantly compute, I’m mostly met with mockery and contempt (without any real effort or inquiry to understand my aims and how they would serve theirs).
Such behavior is an egregious breach in the standards they espouse.
I’m even assailed on things we agree on, because you assume I’m out to discredit Sowell on everything. Simply by virtue of challenging people you put on a pedestal, you think I’m out to bring them down.
So you circle the wagons to protect people from someone who’s spent his life living by principles they promote.
The refusal to benefit from experience
As for my idea
It’s not that difficult to grasp — but in a country consumed by a rat race to feel right about everything: It’s almost impossible to explain anything of depth that doesn’t instantly register.
I’m going to show you how to fix the problem you don’t even know you have. And I assure you, the gains you get now pale in comparison to what awaits you.
You’re all trying to plow through problems when you should be going around them. Ray Liotta put it best in Copland:
You don’t drive down Broadway to get to Broadway. You move diagonal . . . you jag
THIS is not THAT . . .
Blunt Instruments
Just pounding away at problems without any examination of the efficacy of your efforts.
You’re all operating under umbrellas of interests that don’t account for complexities outside of them. Just picking the “root cause” that works for you doesn’t get it done.
You’ve gotta look at interconnected causes across the board.
And this
Is where my Clear the Clutter framework comes in:
To the uneducated, abstract ideas are unfamiliar; so is the detachment that is necessary to discover a truth out of one’s own knowledge and mental effort. The uneducated person views life in an intensely personal way — he knows only what he sees, hears or touches and what he is told by friends. As the unknown sage puts it, “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
But more than ever
Even the most educated minds act in an uneducated manner in service of their interests — and do catastrophic damage by doing so.
It astounds me that some of the most brilliant minds in the world seem incapable of correlating how “unrelated” issues impact one another. The most harmful pollution on the planet is noise — narrative that drowns out sensible discussion.
You could blame those who amplify that deafening noise with delight — or be smart by not doing dumb things that drive the narrative in the first place.
It’s like committing unforced errors in tennis then blaming your opponent for capitalizing on them. In politics, they’re often cheating the system in the process (and I’ve got plenty to say about that).
But when you put stupidity on a silver platter, what do you expect in a culture that doesn’t play by the rules?
You could cry foul — or realize how you shouldn’t have made the mistake from the start.
Learning
Pursuing aims in ways that predictably damage your cause is bad enough. But once the outcome becomes clear, it’s beyond belief that you refuse to reflect on your methods.
Even if you’re right and have the best of intentions: If you’re not smart in making your moves, you can exponentially worsen the problem you’re addressing — along with seemingly unrelated ones.
And already have — again and again . . .
Like many alternatives, however, it was psychologically impossible. Character is fate, as the Greeks believed. Germans were schooled in winning objectives by force, unschooled in adjustment. They could not bring themselves to forgo aggrandizement even at the risk of defeat.
— Barbara Tuchman
Unschooled in Adjustment
America is unschooled in adjustment, I’m not.
For that reason and many more, I see possibilities that others don’t. There was a time when I was big fan of Loury & McWhorter. In fact, it was Loury who partly inspired the idea in the first place:
And McWhorter had a huge hand in it — as he’s right on the money on anti-racism (as I added in I Don’t Do Slogans below):
Alas, we’ve created a culture that would rather split hairs over semantics than consider the spirit of an argument.
Whether or not it’s literally “religion” is not the point — it’s faith-based belief that has no bearing on reality.
Wishful Thinking
Dumb, dishonest, and delusional wars are started and waged in such ways.
And for the love of God
I’m not criticizing religious faith of any kind — I’m criticizing stupidity in the face of facts right in front of your eyes.
First time I ever heard of John McWhorter was in a 2017 interview with Brian Williams. In talking about take a wild guess, he said . . .
He has a rather narcotic joy in dismissal and belittlement
A ton of that goin’ around
And from my decades-long fight to say something about a nation that long ago lost its way, I wrote I Don’t Do Slogans — and Loury loved it.
It’s a mighty fine day when you wake up to find high praise from a man of his caliber . . .
Twice!
That was then
This is now . . .
With the behavior I witnessed across these communities — my faith eroded over time. Being practically spit on by people promoting principles I abide by has a tendency to do that.
With the right tools and approach — these influencers and others could work wonders to solve problems. But you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at winning over wishful thinking with wishful thinking.
However fact-driven your arguments — when your approach isn’t working (and you don’t even bother to wonder if it ever will):
That — is faith-based belief
And they already belonged to one before that:
High praise from Loury is a helluva lot of incentive for me to think these people are the “geniuses” their ever-growing audience thinks they are.
I don’t roll that way . . .
While I maintain a degree of respect for him — and I’m forever grateful for the inspiration he provided: If you’re part of the problem, I don’t care who you are — I’m calling you out.
And that’s
Then there’s this
McWhorter & Loury-like communities are operating on narrative, not principle. It’s a sign of the times that you could celebrate “follow the facts” and refuse to go anywhere near ’em.
Fanatical followers of pundits act like these people are some of the greatest minds to ever live.
We’ve become a culture that wildly exaggerates on everything: Gushing with over-the-top praise or seething with over-the-top scorn. And gain you get in the moment is the only measurement that matters.
On that note
How many of you have dealt with any of these personalities one-on-one? And of that group, how many have put their principles to the test on matters practically woven into their DNA?
I have — and lo and behold, they are not the people you see on TV and YouTube.
about that narrative
We’re a university. We should be above whatever the fad or the fashion is of any given day. We should be looking at the deep questions. We should be analytical. We should be emphasizing reason. Instead, it was like a kind of emotional rush — in which . . . the president and provost and the top leadership of my university — wanted to jump on a bandwagon. They wanted to wave a banner.
And I thought to myself, what have we come to at the university — that the first reaction to grave matters — and the rioting in the street after George Floyd died is a grave matter.
That the reaction is not to think it through, not to question, not to assemble facts, not to make arguments — but instead to wave banners and spout slogans such that you could hardly distinguish what they were doing from a manifesto that would come out of Black Lives Matter
— Glenn Loury
Remove the references around George Floyd — and that behavior rings a bell.
Now I Remember . . .
As the patriots “Never Forget“
The aftermath of this
That the reaction is not to think it through, not to question, not to assemble facts, not to make arguments — but instead to wave banners and spout slogans such that you could hardly distinguish what they were doing from a manifesto that would come out of . . .
Tuchman alighted on a root cause of folly that she called “wooden-headedness” — defined in part as “assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting contrary information.”
If you’re not gonna do your part and accept responsibility for the damage you’ve done and dishonesty baked into your beliefs — why should the Left?
Why should anyone?
Ripping on woke is all the rage. And outrage industries of dish it but can’t take it — would talk about race and responsibility till the end of time.
But heaven forbid we have a single conversation about war and responsibility.
We should be above whatever the fad or the fashion is of any given day. We should be looking at the deep questions. We should be analytical. We should be emphasizing reason.
Only for problems that are popular and easy to perceive? Whatever’s in your wheelhouse? Is that as deep as your questions go, Glenn?
Same goes for this . . .
I don’t care if Kaepernick kneels — I care that you can’t solve multidimensional problems with one-dimensional gestures.
I ask a different question . . .
I do that a lot:
What if Kaepernick kneeled and acknowledged that they need to do their part while asking the police to do theirs?
Hold the phone — you want us to share some responsibility?
Chris Rock didn’t come up with this sketch out of thin air. But for me to suggest this is the entire problem — would be as preposterous as you denying it’s part of it.
Kneel, but couple your message with Kobe’s — and you change the dynamic of the debate:
I won’t react to something just because I’m supposed to, because I’m an African-American. That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American, we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we’ve progressed as a society? Well, then don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American.
The Right would still fuss over it — but they might cut ya some slack if you’re kneeling with a shared purpose.
Protesting in a wholesale manner shows you’re not serious about recognizing the realities of a problem. It says you want to see it only from your perspective.
That — will never work
The problems that plague America are interrelated — and anything short of addressing that is going nowhere.
If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything.
How do we make people realize they’ve been lied to? You have to knock down one small pillar that’s easier to reach.
The people who Tweeted those lines I combined from a conversation I came across — had no idea that they perfectly captured the principle of my Clear the Clutter plan.
I’ve got the perfect pillar
As exposing Sowell is my bridge to expose it all.
It’s time to start solving problems instead of endlessly talking about them and getting nowhere.
All ya gotta do — is do what you say you do. And if you don’t, I’ve got some words for ya, and I guarantee they’ll be by their right name.
Sowell is a great man because of his books. I stand by that. you want to refute his books — go ahead. I’m listening.
— Glenn Loury
You confine his record to a box of beliefs that suit you — and stand by that.
How noble of you
So the rules of argument you espouse on a daily basis don’t apply to you and your ever-growing audience of dittoheads.
Call each thing by its right name
So, my writing was “brilliant” and you were “blown away” by my site and signed up. I guess I’m golden as long as I don’t challenge you to live up to the principles you preach when it comes at a price.
Got it!
When you see a sentence like “Not a trace of Thomas Sowell’s ‘follow the facts’ claim to fame can be found on the most world-altering topic of our time.”
I have no idea what you’re talking about . . .
Is not the mark of an intellectual giant — or an intellectual on any level.
What part of “WMD,” “biggest and most costly lie in modern history,” and “most world-altering topic of our time” — do you not understand?
Perhaps an inquiry or two for clarification was in order?
“The Civil Rights Movement is over” — in 1984!
That — took guts!
And that — is the Loury I was looking for. You said they had no argument against your [R]ebuttal to Brown University’s letter on racism in the United States.
Neither do you on your “National Treasure.”
Instead of listening and learning on things you know nothing about — you let pride consume you. Maybe you don’t know Sowell as well as you thought you did, and heaven forbid you hold him to the same standards pushing your popularity.
You asked them to take stock — just don’t ask you.
Sowell sold out to sell those books you stand by — and I wrote “Water is Not Wet — And I Stand by That” with the likes of Loury in mind.
I wouldn’t care if Sowell cured cancer:
You don’t get a pass for basking in baseless beliefs that cripple the country — and have the bottomless nerve to preach responsibility & accountability to boot.
That is a cancer of its own
The poison he pumped into the atmosphere helped destroy the internal organs of America. So we have very different standards as to what qualifies as a “National Treasure.”
A “great man” would not have his egregious hypocrisy, gross negligence and lies plastered all over my website.
Sowell is not a great man — but he could be:
The incurious see something like the imagery below and mock what doesn’t instantly materialize in meaning. I see it and want to take that journey. The wonderless see “disjointed” media & writing — while I see patterns that clearly have a design.
That it demands something of my mind is what interests me all the more.
I love having to work things out and connect the dots . . .
And that’s just the beginning.
What I have in mind is something of a JSOC — to join forces for a greater good that’s the gold standard of unimpeachable integrity.
Institute for Honesty? Institute for Integrity?
Something along those lines. Let’s just stick with JSOC for now — since it sounds cool and it’s got a nifty badge and all. Whatever the name . . .
JSOC’s scrutiny spares no one
Note:
There are strategic steps as to how JSOC would be established (which can be found elsewhere on this site).
Right now, I’m just floating the concept — and other ideas this nation so desperately needs:
You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you an inactive Spectator . . . I greatly fear that the arm of treachery and violence is lifted over us as a Scourge and heavy punishment from heaven for our numerous offences, and for the misimprovement of our great advantages.
If we expect to inherit the blessings of our Fathers, we should return a little more to their primitive Simplicity of Manners, and not sink into inglorious ease.
We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
— Abigail Adams, 16 October 1774
One Voice Became Two 