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.
Which one below looks like he’s on point?
If only you’d laid it all out exactly as I like it — then I’d abide by the principles I preach
Is that how it works?
That’s about the size of it.
I guess I figured that if you didn’t understand something — you’d try this on for size, but I’m old-fashioned that way:
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
Sowell’s Rock Stars of Reasoning & Stalwarts of Civility
And these are on the mild end:
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
You introduce statements and arguments of people who aren’t Thomas 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.
Sowell’s fanatical followers make it nearly impossible to put a pinprick through the envelope of intransigence encasing their brain. Blindly defending Sowell is in gross breach of the principles upon which you put him on a pedestal.
You flood the internet with his fancy quotes & catchphrases — and yet the behavior behind them is nowhere to be found.
Following facts going in the direction you desire doesn’t count:
Anybody can do that
“Compared to What?”
You can’t have “Compared to What?” without comparing what’s in question. In the aftermath of 9/11 — the marquee evidence used to sell a war in the Middle East is as critical as comparison gets.
What does it say to you: That on evidence claimed as components to build a nuclear bomb — the “debate” was hijacked by 10-second sound bites?
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?
“What hard evidence do you have?”
Hard enough to drop the hammer on you a hundred times over.
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?
Consider yourself lucky that concrete evidence of mathematical certainty doesn’t qualify with your flock when it comes to protecting you and their shortsighted interests.
Nor does any notion of responsibility and accountability.
Those things only apply to people you don’t like . . .
The Left institutionalizes weakness — and the Democratic Party is notorious for lacking backbone. You weaken the very people you’re trying to strengthen — branding weakness to boot.
And right on cue, the Right is ready to pounce.
I don’t blame ’em — except for the part about them being weak while branding strength.
Conservatives have put on a masterclass of complaining for 30 years — but because the intelligentsia on the Left perennially pumps candy into that piñata: They beat the hell out of you — while unconscionably ignoring the debauchery of their own behavior.
Sailing away on Scot-Free . . .
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)
- 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:
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? . . .
Speaking of motive
“Hear From Condoleezza Rice” . . .
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
“At What Cost?” . . .
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?
Preach responsibility and take none
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 bitch about the media — and they don’t make policy. But the second I scrutinize Sowell — suddenly you have new standards.
180 — how fitting
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.
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.
You’re “honored” by my “brilliant” writing in I Don’t Do Slogans on The Yellow Brick Road — and you’re “blown away” by my site: As long as I don’t challenge you to live up to the principles you preach when it comes at a price.
Got it!
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.”
There are far worse culprits on all-things Iraq, but I’ve been down that road for decades. Discovering Sowell and the underworld of absurdity that shields him — makes him ideal to put these lies in their place once and for all.
And change the dynamic of debate to boot.
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:
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? Oh my God — somebody’s not who they claim to be:
That’s never happened before.
With the mountain of childish & spectacularly stupid shit I’ve seen in defense of this man . . .
You’d think they really were born yesterday: Automatons who act as though they have no understanding of how to process anything that doesn’t instantly compute in their favor.
A lot of that goin’ around
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 documentary 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.
Half the country took the word of professional know-it-alls over nuclear scientists. And when your camp came up empty on WMD — you just bought more bullshit from the same people who sold you the first batch:
Shrewd!
Funny thing about information
It can seem incoherent when you don’t take any of it into account.
I do all the work, you do nothing and consider nothing — then blame me for failing to convince you. Anyone wanting to know the truth would not behave in ways that ensure they never will.
The surgical specificity of this clip puts this lie in its place in 5 minutes alone.
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
DOE’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.”
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
Between Sowell’s words and mine
Which ones strike you as glib?
But I’ve noticed nothing strikes you that doesn’t serve you:
this — is just priceless:
Even if he said that stuff, your entire diatribe smacks of the now classic modern progressive tactic of taking a single mistake by anyone whose views they don’t like and using that one error in judgement to try and discredit ALL their work.
Who said I disagreed with his work?
Outside of butchering the debate on WMD — and his partisan hackery in flagrantly ignoring his own camp’s abominable behavior, record of recklessness, systematic lying, and hypocrisy that knows no bounds:
I haven’t come across anything I object to.
His followers would surely say, “Yes” — but their actions say otherwise.
Apparently, his principles below are only to be applied against the Left. I misunderstood, as I was under the impression that Sowell follows the facts whether they lead.
That’s what he said — and so did you.
But I go by what people do — I’m old-fashioned that way.
America’s more into what’s fashionable:
opinions lightly adopted but firmly held . . . forged from a combination of ignorance, dishonesty, and fashion
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.
“It’s indefensible! Don’t you know that?”
The rolodex of excuses around Sowell is off the charts. There’s a faction for forgiveness — by people who have nothing of the kind for their enemies.
Everyone is human and at least occasionally shows poor judgement.
That doesn’t cut it when you miserably fail to acknowledge that poor judgment:
Particularly when you make a living pouncing on others about theirs. And Given the world-altering consequences of manufacturing a lie to invade a Middle Eastern country in the aftermath of 9/11:
The chances of Sowell being a repeat offender on lying and/or manipulating matters in a manner outside the parameters of a “Maverick”:
But no need to fuss over predictions . . .
As I’ve already got the goods to prove that Sowell’s hypocrisy doesn’t end on WMD.
Not only did he flagrantly fail to follow the facts on all-things Iraq — he brazenly ignored the debauchery in his own party to politely pounce on the other.
And yet somehow his patently obvious history of hypocrisy has gone unnoticed for decades by people heaping praise upon him.
On top of all that
They have no idea of the depths of deception involved here — but have no qualms about issuing instant forgiveness for it.
Faction for the hybrid model . . .
- No big deal
- No authority
- Forgiveness
If your strongest criticism of him is that he was wrong on the Iraq war, I’d frankly say “big deal.” Millions of people were wrong about that shit back then. He had no political authority or say on the matter, so I think he could be forgiven for that mistake. (Assuming that you’re right of course, I’m still waiting for you to supply the evidence).
He has no idea what the deal is . . .
But is perfectly satisfied in blowing it off as “no big deal.”
And right on cue:
I’m still waiting for you to supply the evidence
Sowell’s second article on the subject is a 2-minute read at 752 words — not one of which addresses the tubes that took us to war. And yet this mountain of information below was publicly available before he wrote that article:
How do you reconcile that?
No need . . .
And who needs scruples when you’ve got an army of apologists to absolve you of anything that doesn’t comply with The Program.
This hero-worship horseshit has gotten totally out of hand — as with everything else in a country that’s gone out of its mind:
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 . . .
As I said on my doc:
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. . . .
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.
One D.O.E. analyst offered a superb analogy of that contorted conclusion: “Running your car up to 6,500 RPM briefly does not prove that you can run your car at 6,500 RPM cross country. It just doesn’t. Your car’s not going to make it.”
In an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter, these guys were playing horseshoes with centrifuge physics.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
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
The second you’re questioned, those precious virtues you peddle in the Facts Over Feelings Parade — are rolled right over with your feelings.
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.
The second I heard “quote me to me” on Suits — Sowell came to mind: A fraud who fabricated a fantasyland of following the facts wherever they lead.
The force field of fallacy that shields him embodies behavior that’s an embarrassment to the entire history of human achievement. 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
Sowell’s cult-like following is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something.
It’s also a golden opportunity.
I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth. There’s a way we can harness folly from the past for the benefit of the future. It’s as out-of-the-box as it gets, but rooted in timeless truths America made outdated.
A rare instance of a Sowell supporter seeing his hypocrisy plain as day. But who said I was writing off his whole career? Quite the contrary:
Compelling him to admit where he’s wrong will work wonders for where he’s right.
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!
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:
One Voice Became Two 