Anyone wanting to know the truth would not behave in ways that ensure they never will. If you abandon your critical thinking skills the moment you even perceive a threat to your interests:
Doesn’t that bring those skills into question?
My generation got off easy — all we were called to do was weigh information. But even that was too much of a burden. As we got more, we became less. 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:
When protecting your interests, most of America’s into the newfangled ways of “argument” — where you furiously fire off some fashionable form of “You’re wrong!” and dish it all day long: Insisting on “affirmation independent of all findings” (borrowing from Peck who borrowed from Buber).
I never got on board.
You’re wrong — and here’s why
That’s the discipline — to have a work ethic in the way you think. Without “here’s why,” you’re just whistlin’ Dixie.
In reference to its opening image on Without Passion or Prejudice, I wrote the following:
Half the country is with me on this — and I just lost the other half. Had I started with the image below — it would be the opposite half.
Let that sink in for a moment . . .
Just Roll It Around Is All I Ask!
You’d be amazed by the power of pausing
Taking on the entire country is apples & oranges as it gets when compared to the transactional nature of news and social-media norms.
What if I put ’em side by side?
The Right treating Bush like the Second Coming of Christ — set the stage for the rise of the Rock Star they spent the next 8 years railing against. That doesn’t strike me as sound strategy.
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.
Exponentially exacerbating the very problems you’re fighting against — is not smart. Just what would it take to have that conversation?
And now, even now
The cat . . . TOTALLY out of the BAG!
And still — you don’t learn
The problems that plague America are interrelated — and anything short of addressing that is going nowhere.
But everyone’s wrapped up in their wheelhouse — operating under umbrellas of interests that don’t account for complexities outside of them. An endless barrage of niche-based argument to beat back bunk — has no chance in today’s trench warfare between armies of unreachables.
Just picking the “root cause” that works for you doesn’t get it done. You’ve gotta look at interconnected causes across-the-board:
Thanks to the internet and the cable clans paving the way for the onslaught of the utterly absurd: Everything’s poisoned by perception and hypocrisy now.
America is in perennial pursuit of ideologies . . .
Warfare waged with:
opinions lightly adopted but firmly held . . . forged from a combination of ignorance, dishonesty, and fashion
— Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom
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.
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 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.
Believing things that have no bearing on reality has become a plague across America — erosion of reason that took decades of denying the undeniable.
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.
I doubt even the most loyal LeBron fans would dispute his glaringly obvious history of flopping — but he does:
I play an aggressive game. I don’t flop. I’ve never been one of those guys
— LeBron James
There was a time when it would be embarrassing for a ball player to feign being fouled on the level of theatrics in King James’ court. You’d be laughed off the court for pulling stunts like that in my day.
It’s all the more absurd when you consider that even with the hardest-hitting fouls back in the 80s — nobody flailed about like that on impact.
Never mind Lebron’s built like a Tiger tank.
Tiger Tanks Could Withstand a Dozen Sherman[s]
The only way that so many levels of sham and stupidity could be so easily accepted — is that it was normalized little by little over time.
Ain’t that America
His words are pure fantasy. But it doesn’t matter, because that’s the country we’ve become — where words are empty and utterly baseless beliefs are solid gold as long as they serve you.
And you can feign offense to avoid having to answer for anything.
As I said in my doc:
It’s astounding how the mind can pull off psychological gymnastics that allow us to believe what we say without any sense of accounting for it.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act V
In a culture increasingly comfortable with ease, wrong is increasingly rationalized in the name of right. If only you could see the galactic waste of time, energy, and money on matters that make you think you’re making progress.
Never mind the damage you do along the way.
Believe it or not, the best way to serve your interests is to first and foremost — hold your own accountable. If you want to make the opposition look bad, try looking good. If you want to have the moral high ground, try earning it:
The moral high ground, in ethical or political parlance, refers to the status of being respected for remaining moral, and adhering to and upholding a universally recognized standard of justice or goodness.
Early on in COVID, I was ridiculed for refusing to take a position on something I knew nothing about. I’m old-fashioned that way. A lot of things are old-fashioned on here — and my willingness to admit mistakes is one of ’em. With the right spirit, you can even have fun with it — as I did in Elephant in the Room Award.
Acknowledging error is liberating and leads to enlightenment. And I would know . . . many times over:
“Why, thank you! I had no idea!” Why would people prefer to justify mistaken beliefs, behavior, and practices rather than change them for better ones?
From a lifetime of practice, “Why, thank you! I had no idea!” is protocol for me. I love to be corrected — even if it stings a bit at first. 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
I happily belong to an infinitesimal minority that feels we’re not informed enough to have all the answers to every controversial issue in America. We don’t have a monopoly on virtue — and don’t want one. We’re not only willing to change our minds, we welcome it — and appreciate those who correct us.
My mission is not driven by changing your values, but rather the manner in which you pursue them. I don’t even want to be part of the debate — I just want honest debate. From decades of dealing with hermetically sealed minds — I came up with an idea for how to do that.
There’s a way we can harness folly from the past for the benefit of the future:
A.K.A. Learning
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
My idea is as out-of-the-box as it gets — but rooted in timeless truths America made outdated. I’ve already done all the work — I just need a little help in having it land in the right hands. I have a very specific target audience to get this in gear, so it wouldn’t take much.
One email could set off a chain of events that could open the door to the kind of conversation this nation’s never had.
My idea is simple
Cutting through our Crap is King culture to get you to see it — is not.
You make it nearly impossible to put a pinprick through the envelope of intransigence encasing your brain:
Where 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.
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. I’ve been blocked 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.
The Yellow Brick Road is the path of America’s pursuits:
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.
Pay no mind to how many times we go backwards by the means in which you move forward . . .
“We . . . want it now, and if it makes money now, it’s a good idea. But . . . if the things we’re doing are going to mess up the future, it wasn’t a good idea. Don’t deal on the moment. Take the long-term look at things.”
— The Dust Bowl
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 [does it matter?]
— Glenn Loury, Tucker Carlson Today
When the context suits you, such words are solid gold. What you do when it doesn’t — determines the worth of your word.
Loury was rightly talking about the Black Lives Matter manifesto driving the aftermath of George Floyd. But the Left’s ludicrous ways pale in comparison to conservatives going batshit crazy after 9/11. The Right delights in ridiculing the Left for burning buildings to further the cause:
Yet the “party of personal responsibility” set the world ablaze while browbeating anybody out of line in their March of Folly.
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.
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.
As for woke
Tough love used to be timeless:
Now everything’s an assault on increasingly fragile egos. 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.
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. 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).
As I said in my doc:
At the heart of why we fail to live up to our potential as a society is because we excel at polluting even the purest form of fact. How can we possibly solve serious problems when we refuse to adhere to some semblance of the fundamentals of making sense?
— Richard W. Memmer: Epilogue
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 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.
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:
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.
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:
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)
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.
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:
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
I point you to a 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.
Just what would it take
For you to do what you say you do?
By Design
America Remains Mired in the Murky
Regurgitated Garbage
On an issue involving an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter:
What does it say to you that 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?
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 . . .
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!
Preach responsibility and take none
The question comes down to whether or not you’re basing your belief on something in the realm of reason — not some fail-safe fantasy that allows you to believe whatever you want.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act III
Hide and Seek
Consequences matter or should matter more than some attractive or fashionable theory.
— Thomas Sowell
I couldn’t agree more
Except there were no consequences on the fiasco for the ages driven by this manifesto:
The outcome of which fashioned a culture of no consequences.
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.”
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
She also saw wooden-headedness as a certain proclivity for “acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by facts.”
— Russ Hoyle
Your pursuit of truth & accountability seems awfully one-sided, Mr. Sowell.
I don’t roll that way:
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
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?
Wooden-headedness, said Tuchman, was finally — “the refusal to benefit from experience.”
The Refusal to Benefit from Experience
According to Coleman Hughes (a member of F.A.I.R’s board of advisors):
[T]he basic premise of Black Lives Matter — that racist cops are killing unarmed black people—is false. There was a time when I believed it. . . . . My opinion has slowly changed. . . .
Two things changed my mind: stories and data.
— Stories and Data: Reflections on race, riots, and police
Stories and data — works for me!
How do you think Hughes would handle his hero flagrantly ignoring stories and data (of mathematical certainty, no less): On the biggest and most costly lie in modern history? A helluva lot better than the savagery I’ve seen — no doubt. But would he abide by F.A.I.R’s Pro-Human Pledge of Fairness, Understanding, and Humanity? If he didn’t — what would that say about him?
And what does it say about Sowell’s followers that: In the face of centrifuge physics for uranium enrichment (an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter):
“You couldn’t carry Sowell’s jockstrap!” is emblematic of their “arguments” . . .
In response to this?
If evidence claimed as components to build a nuclear bomb isn’t worthy of consideration, what is? For a Maverick who’s worshipped for following the facts — wouldn’t he take the trail to where they matter most?
As in the marquee evidence used to manufacture this fraud?
I did — Sowell didn’t
Which one below looks like he’s on point?
I’m not out to “DESTROY” Sowell
Quite the contrary! Stick around — you’ll see.
My surgical specificity of this clip puts this lie in its place in 5 minutes alone. To take a story this complex and convoluted and boil its essence down to a few minutes was no small feat.
Trillion Dollar Tube
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?
And these are on the mild end of the savagery I’ve seen.
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
Holy shit…. a video of a circle jerks with a nut in the center talking about RPMS. Yet somehow Thomas Sowell is a liar.
How do you reconcile that with this?
His crowd thinks 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. As I’m practically spit on by people promoting principles I followed to find he didn’t — it’s impossible for you to fathom how preposterous I find their fantasyland of Facts Over Feelings.
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?
In over 2 years of writing about Sowell, I’ve seen everything from polite dismissiveness to sheer savagery. In some cases, his followers defend him before they even know what the subject matter is. I’m even assailed on things we agree on, because you assume I’m out to discredit him on everything.
Blind loyalty is not a path to understanding anything — which does incalculable damage to your cause in the long run. And that behavior is in gross breach of the very principles upon which he’s put on a pedestal.
I expected better from Glenn Loury:
It’s a mighty fine day when you wake up to find high praise from a man his caliber — twice! He called I Don’t Do Slogans on The Yellow Brick Road “brilliant” and was “honored” by my commentary:
He partly inspired this site and was “blown away” by it and signed up:
As he’s also a member of F.A.I.R’s board of advisors, I had hoped stories and data would be considered about the side of Sowell his followers refuse to see.
Alas, Loury wasn’t about to look at undeniable evidence warranting that he change his mind.
So he changed the rules . . .
Right on cue | Never fails
Cognitive dissonance doesn’t care that you signed a pledge. More on Loury later, but I assure you:
F.A.I.R was nowhere to be found:
I believe in applying the same rules to everyone . . . I seek to treat everyone equally . . . I am open-minded . . I seek to understand . . . I pursue the objective truth through honest inquiry.
Such high praise from Loury is a helluva lot of incentive for me to think these people are the “geniuses” their 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
Had Loury listened . . .
With the idea I have in mind: We could have changed the rules by putting a mechanism in place that boxes everybody in to abide by them. Ya know, the rules you rail on others for failing to follow — then instantly abandon when they don’t work in your favor.
A lot of that goin’ around
To see the character of the government and the country so sported with, exposed to so indelible a blot, puts my heart to the torture. . . . Or what is it that thus torments me at a circumstance so calmly viewed by almost everybody else? Am I a fool, a romantic Quixote, or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind?
Were it not for yourself and a few others, I . . . would say . . . there is something in our climate which belittles every animal, human or brute. . . . I disclose to you without reserve the state of my mind. It is discontented and gloomy in the extreme.
I consider the cause of good government as having been put to an issue and the verdict against it.
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″
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.
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.
Note:
I modified the Intelligence Community image above by overlaying CIA on top of Director of National Intelligence — to show how the IC effectively operated pre-9/11 and before DCI took center stage.
Mr. Sowell:
Could you tell me why the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) — got an equal say on the aluminum tubes for the NIE vote?
An agency that does imagery analysis of the Earth . . .
Same for NSA . . .
And other agencies that had no expertise in centrifuge physics. And why wasn’t JAEIC allowed to weigh in?
What’s JAEIC? Allow me.
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.
On that note . . .
“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. If you only apply the principles you preach when it serves your interests — they’re just empty claims on a cup and a meaningless mantra touted on a T-shirt.
“At what cost?”
Stockton Rush’s name will never be forgotten for his folly that took 5 lives in a contraption doomed to fail. That same wishful thinking in totally unsuitable material — was held by a CIA/WINPAC analyst named Joe Turner:
Who provided a path to war that cost countless lives and $2.2 trillion.
Never heard of him . . .
I imagine not — in a country that can’t even get this straight:
“What hard evidence do you have?”
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?
Two things changed my mind: stories and data.
Stories and data . . .
Or just stories and data that swiftly serve a market?
If I did cartwheels on TikTok to tell this story — you’d take issue with my form. We’ve created a culture that gripes over “flashy graphics” while worshipping liars in the images. Constant complaining has become a virtue — where everything of value is gain you get in the moment:
And easy is all the rage!
Anyone entering this discussion with sincerity — would come away realizing that there is no debate, and there never was.
They just made it up
For people slinging slogans like “Show me the evidence” and “Follow the facts” on a daily basis:
Asking you to do what you say you do — seems like reasonable request. But not the tiniest trace of reasoning or courtesy 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.
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? Never mind this story goes straight to the top with who’s in the White House right now — on very specific culpability to boot.
How so? How I’d love to live in a world where you’d ask not out of party-line pursuits — but because it’s on the trail to the truth.
Funny thing about information
It can seem incoherent when you don’t take any of it into account.
America loves to lionize people who simplify everything. Has it ever occurred to you that it’s so easy to digest because they left a bunch of stuff out? They’re not gods. And when you treat them as such — you do a cosmic disservice to them, yourselves, the country, and the world as well.
There is no measure for how asinine these acolytes are in defending the indefensible — automatons devoid of rational thought & manners. Your behavior has not an atom of integrity, courtesy, curiosity, courage, decency, effort:
Or any virtue of any kind
On evidence involving artillery rockets and material properties of centrifuge rotors — the apostles of Sowell smugly cite his books on economics, race, and whatnot: Anything to glorify him as they abandon any notion of accountability:
Butchering his bedrock beliefs as they dance in delight behind their force field of fallacy.
These people do nothing but question my motives, mock my site, and assault my character — then proudly post quotes of Sowell looking stately as he condemns the very thing they’re doing.
- 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 . . .
[W]e must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it
— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
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
Just how “brilliant” could you be and blow it on something this big and glaringly obvious?
This isn’t about intelligence, it’s about ulterior motives. But shouldn’t Sowell 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?
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.
On top of unconscionably ignoring irrefutable evidence of world-altering consequence, he has a habit of toeing the party line. Not only did Sowell 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.
In light of his history being wildly out of sync with his sanctimonious claims: That “one small crack” is a wide-open window into his character and credibility.
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.
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.
— 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 Thomas Sowell’s supporters:
They’ve shared their values with venom.
Sowell’s a well-mannered guy on the whole and these people act like animals to “honor” him. And that — is an opportunity.
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. And to do that — first we gotta 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 — and you do it by holding one man to his own standards.
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 harm them in doing so.
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!
Admitting where he’s wrong will work wonders for where he’s right.
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 and Left.
Courage means, first off, the unqualified rejection of lies. Do not speak untruths, either about yourself or anyone else, no matter the comfort offered by the mob. And do not genially accept the lies told to you. If possible, be vocal in rejecting claims you know to be false. Courage can be contagious, and your example may serve as a means of transmission.
We are living through an epidemic of cowardice. The antidote is courage.
— Bari Weiss
I’ve seen no such courage in her community or any other. Following facts going in the direction you desire doesn’t count:
Anybody can do that
If we don’t right this ship, we will not see a return to some semblance of recognizing reality in our lifetime. Mark my words — your ways will seal that fate. As my videographer perfectly put it:
We finally figured out what we were doing by the end
If we don’t change course as a country — we won’t . . .
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:
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.
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. Is that really too much to ask? But if you’re game for good old-fashioned conversation — please contact me through the site, Anchor.Press.gg@gmail.com, or DM (Direct Message) on Twitter:
As I no longer respond to Tweets or superficial fragments of any kind. If you’re unwilling to accommodate my request for conversation in a form not limited to 280 characters — such inflexibility doesn’t qualify for what I have in mind.
One Voice Became Two 