Doing some retooling of Part II after some major modifications to Part I.
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.
The gems of genius that await me:
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.
I wonder if anyone wonders why I blur out their names. This is about accepted behavior across the country — not specifically targeting these people. My aim isn’t to make you look bad — it’s for you to stop looking bad.
Ridicule just rolls right off me anymore. I’m not dealing with individuals — I’m dealing with a collective machine that’s been programmed to put me down.
My job is to jam up the gears — and get these gears going again:
I like the cut of your jib, sir
And then there are those memorable moments when someone surprises you with the simplicity and elegance of a line like that.
In a sea of insults, one kind comment is like wind in your sails.
Speaking of motive
What can we establish about the bit below from the article above?
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.
Do Sowell’s words on the subject comport that article’s 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?
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.
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?
Sowell’s cogent & sober arguments . . .
regurgitated garbage
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.
“It was time to take stock”
“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 . . .
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. You applaud my writing 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?
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.
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.
Repeatedly rehashing issues is not the mark of problem solving: It’s the mark of a market.
All these channels are blunt instruments (including those I agree with). Like Black Lives Matter and America as a whole: You’re just pounding away at problems without any examination of the efficacy of your efforts.
Once again . . .
This nation does nothing in the spirit of exchange, give & take, and arguing in good faith. Talk about being “triggered” (since that’s the lingo you love): Instantly firing off “Where’s your facts?” — in the face of maybe the most detailed documentary ever done on any subject:
is raw emotion
It would be unthinkable for me to refuse to look at someone’s work — and fire back with your “Where’s your facts?” refrain of an automaton because they don’t instantaneously appear. Let’s get real: That’s a stunt (like smugly slinging “I’ll wait”) — not a genuine inquiry in the interest of truth.
And the only thing you’re “waiting” for is fodder to fuel your next fix.
If you don’t want to watch my documentary that’s chock-full of facts on this fiasco for the ages, that’s your prerogative. But don’t bitch about what you don’t see when you refuse to look. I said that to the person who wrote the Tweet below — and unlike virtually all Sowell supporters: He had the guts to take it to heart and reconsider.
Imagine!
Not long before this Tweet, this guy was condemning my efforts like all the rest that day (and every day).
And then he opened the doc . . .
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?
This crowd is so passionate about Facts Over Feelings — that they never pause long enough for a “Hmm . . .”: As you blow by right by the facts to respond on feelings. If you operated anywhere in the same galaxy of your claims:
The mountain of material I’ve written over decades wouldn’t exist.
It’s all marketing
If he were the genuine article — those books would not be so one-sided.
The notion that feelings over facts is limited to the Left is ludicrous. If you were trying to solve a problem instead of sell books and boost your popularity — you’d be fair-minded by addressing how this behavior applies across-the-board.
If it were truly about following the facts, you wouldn’t need slogans and wouldn’t want ’em: Your record would speak for itself.
Then again
Do these people really wanna solve problems anyway? Do you?
Man is at least as much a problem-creating as a problem-solving animal. Better a crisis than the permanent boredom of meaninglessness.
— Life at the Bottom
But even if you look at it from a purely political viewpoint:
Had you held Trump to higher standards, he might still be in office. Same goes for the other side — had they not wallowed in woke and played their tried and untrue games on race, Trump would not have won the White House in the first place.
But keep the faith
As I said from the start:
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:
If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. What I have in mind is a framework for intellectually honest debate that allows for principles to breathe instead of being suffocated by narrative.
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.
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:
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.
If Sowell’s such a “genius” . . .
How come he can’t figure out that blindly defending this led to that . . .
Obama took race relations totally off the rails (paving the way for woke as well). And yet somehow Sowell can’t connect the dots on what should be self-evident to anyone with an inkling of objectivity?
“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
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.
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
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:
Conveniently ignoring how they 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
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.
Let’s look at the definition of “merits” — since not everyone understands it (and so few practice it) . . .
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)
Be quite a coincidence if they weren’t:
Ya know, connected
Oh my god
He used an unrelated movie to make a point and tossed in some comedy for effect. What does that say about the quality of his argument?
It says you need to get your head out of your ass — and stop flailing about like an imbecile incapable of understanding anything.
By Design
America Remains Mired in the Murky
What does it say to you that the WMD “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!
Your pursuit of truth & accountability seems awfully one-sided. I don’t roll that way.
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
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?
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
In a nation that incessantly blames and complains (seemingly for sport) — no one’s taking responsibility for anything. The ever-rising ocean of partisan pettiness is gluttony under the guise of concern.
What would you call untold millions marching to a Twitter-rage parade on WMD — dishing on the deaths of Rumsfeld and Powell (and whatever anniversary marks the moment):
But too lazy to take the time to look at what we can do about it. Of course, that would require holding their own accountable as well:
So there’s that
Happy 20th Anniversary!
Seize the day to be jacked up on fuel to fire off your fury and excuses in a nation that never learns: But loves to light it up in lip service to virtues.
Ever-so bold behind force fields of fallacy that butcher those “beliefs.“
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? . . .
She also saw wooden-headedness as a certain proclivity for “acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by facts.”
Wooden-headedness, said Tuchman, was finally — “the refusal to benefit from experience.”
Putting aside Bill Cosby’s fall from grace . . .
He was a universal icon of goodness growing up. In just this 5-second scene from Picture Pages — a parallel can be drawn to everything I advocate:
The.Deal.Is.That.We.Connect.These.Dots . . .
You see
Imagine!
There are powerful forces that make damn sure you don’t:
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.
That the decline of America 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.
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.
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:
Funny how there’s always an excuse . . .
Back in the day — there was no website with an array of illustrations to gripe about. I was just sharing Trillion Dollar Tube to all these fine folks flaunting their badge of beliefs so F.A.I.R.
Showing some courtesy for a 5-minute excerpt doesn’t seem like much to ask such bastions of virtue. But without watching one second — self-satisfied scorn was your gold standard for gleefully gutting the truth.
And why mess with tradition?
If you don’t like my illustrations, go read the bone-dry reports for yourselves: And I’ve got plenty more material to add to your reading list. But that takes work — and why bother when you can just ridicule those who did it for you.
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 . . .
Or Not . . .
Snowflake, Libtard, Libturd, Cupcake, Bush hater, Bush basher, Bush Derangement Syndrome, TDS, Demon-crat, Democrat Party
Stirring Defense
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
I put it all on a silver platter, but you won’t consider 160 seconds, let alone 160 minutes. 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?
You think I wanted to chop up my doc into clips to accommodate America’s attention span? But still that wasn’t enough. I do all the work, you do nothing and consider nothing — then blame me for failing to convince you.
In slinging your insults, you’re insulting your intelligence far more than you’re insulting me. I’ll swim across a river of insults to get to a meeting of the minds on the other side. But we’d get there a helluva lot faster if you’d just show a little grace in the give-and-take of information.
My documentary offers you overwhelming and irrefutable evidence 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 doc 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 just watched the doc in the first place.
Some people took one view — some people took another
Utterly ridiculous
A passionate observer shares his way of preserving one of our most cherished freedoms — to pursue the truth, no matter how tough the issue, through honest, open, and unflinching discussion.”
— Parade . . .
“Parade” — how fitting!
[The O’Reilly Factor is] a one-hour program that runs 5 days a week — and yet in its entire history, O’Reilly has never even uttered the words “aluminum tubes.”
It just doesn’t register with the likes of O’Reilly that what Clinton and Cohen thought is entirely irrelevant to the tubes — but smugly circulating invalid arguments is the way of the world now.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act IV
How do I know the numbers on O’Reilly and the rest?
I had access — to everything
On this story: 10 pages of reading trumps 10,000 hours of TV — cable clans & broadcast to boot.
And that’s a fact — I did the math. Who cares about 10 pages when “you can’t believe everything you read”? Same standard to snub someone who’s read 10,000 — on world-altering affairs you snicker at. And I noticed “you can’t believe everything you read” only applies to words you don’t like.
This isn’t guesswork, shooting from the hip, or hyperbole: I know, for an absolute fact — that O’Reilly never even uttered the words “aluminum tubes” on his show. In another lifetime, we could acknowledge those things — and operate somewhere in the realm of sanity.
Or at least agree on math — and I know the numbers . . .
These professional know-it-alls breathlessly bitch about issues on a daily basis: And yet somehow on a matter of war in the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11 — they just forgot to mention the marquee evidence Powell presented to sell it? And the second a guest brought up the tubes, O’Reilly instantly shut down the discussion (never to be brought up again) . . .
Red Light District
Citing outdated and generic claims from Democrats is an emotional response to outright reject opposing arguments in a wholesale manner.
THAT . . . is the epitome of spin — to engineer an illusion — to make you believe that something meaningless has substance.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act IV
Just what would it take . . .
For “O’Reilly never even uttered the words ‘aluminum tubes‘” to register as something worthy of consideration?
At every turn . . .
The faithful tap dance around reality — oily evading anything that requires them to hold Sowell to his own standards.
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
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
The rotor speed required to separate uranium isotopes doesn’t care who’s president.
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:
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
And how do you reconcile that with this? . . .
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 binary beliefs are gonna fall apart.
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.
The rolodex of excuses around Sowell is off the charts — which is obscenely out of line for the standards he espouses. 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. 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
The gems of genius that await me:
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.
I wonder if anyone wonders why I blur out their names. This is about accepted behavior across the country — not specifically targeting these people. My aim isn’t to make you look bad — it’s for you to stop looking bad.
Ridicule just rolls right off me anymore. I’m not dealing with individuals — I’m dealing with a collective machine that’s been programmed to put me down.
My job is to jam up the gears — and get these gears going again:
I like the cut of your jib, sir
And then there are those memorable moments when someone surprises you with the simplicity and elegance of a line like that.
In a sea of insults, one kind comment is like wind in your sails.
That you even think that a story so complex and convoluted could be explained away so easily — is a monumental problem all by itself.
And without even the most basic insight into anything on this story: That camp has a habit of glossing over global issues of catastrophic consequences with . . .
“Seems”
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?”
And 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.
As for economics — I’m not qualified on that front. Imagine — there are still people who measure their knowledge in such ways.
This nation has no such notion
There’s no willingness to say, “I’m wrong.” I mean, you have to take a 2×4 to these people, basically — to get ’em to, sorta, knock ’em down and admit they were wrong.
That physicist is talking about the people pushing the aluminum tubes fantasy that took us to war.
And I’m talkin’ about you
As I said in my doc:
America has gone totally off the rails in its worship of the wildly undeserving — and that includes the so-called Rock Star running the show right now.
— Richard W. Memmer: Epilogue
While I had Obama and Bush primarily in mind at the time — my message was about that behavior no matter who it is.
I’m old-fashioned that way too.
Just how “brilliant” could you be and blow it on something this big and glaringly obvious?
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.
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
The smorgasbord of sub-cultures has created another dimension of delusion in America — hardening minds not broadening them. The commentary in these communities speaks volumes about social media and the state of society: Habitually hailing high praise for purveyors of virtue — virtues that vanish the second they’re called to put them to the test.
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.
Nowadays you can “agree to disagree” about subject matter you know nothing about. Anything Goes in our Age of Unenlightenment — where “all opinions are equal” whenever you feel the need to call on that convenience. There’s nothing sacred in our society:
Anything that can be butchered, will be. Somebody brilliantly captured the fallacy of this corrupted catchphrase:
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!
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 . . .
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.
Glenn goes on to say:
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?
by the way
Maybe when you’re done talking race, woke, and CRT for the ten thousandth time: We can consider approaching problems in a more multi-dimensional manner?
Just a thought!
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 . . .
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
[W]e must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it
— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
In a nation that incessantly blames and complains (seemingly for sport) — no one’s taking responsibility for anything. The ever-rising ocean of partisan pettiness is gluttony under the guise of concern.
What would you call untold millions marching to a Twitter-rage parade on WMD — dishing on the deaths of Rumsfeld and Powell (and whatever anniversary marks the moment):
But too lazy to take the time to look at what we can do about it. Of course, that would require holding their own accountable as well:
So there’s that.
Happy 20th Anniversary!
Seize the day to be jacked up on fuel to fire off your fury and excuses in a nation that never learns: But loves to light it up in lip service to virtues.
Ever-so bold behind force fields of fallacy that butcher those “beliefs.“
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
If you don’t like my illustrations, go read the reports for yourselves: And I’ve got plenty more material to add to your reading list. But that takes work — and why bother when you can just ridicule those who did it for you.
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 . . .
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. As disgusted as I am by it all — I feel sorry for the lives of hermetically sealed minds. You’ll never know how much more the world had to offer you — and how much more you had to offer it.
We can change all that — and all ya gotta do, is do what you say you do.
To clear the clutter:
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:
Never mind this . . .
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: Right and Left.
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.
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 . . .
One Voice Became Two 