But that’s me — you have other ideas
V for Victory — How Fitting . . .
A world where you can win an argument without even knowing what the issue is about. How you behave in denying the undeniable daily would be unthinkable for me to do ever.
Imagine America as an engine and you come along with a cross-section of it to explain why it’s not working. Since your audience shares your concerns, you’d think they’d be interested in understanding the internals of the problem. But they spend all their time talking about parts made by people they don’t like — never considering the defects in their own parts.
And even though you’ve got a rock-solid idea for how to fix the engine (or at least make it run on reason): They’d rather spend the rest of their lives complaining about problems than take responsibility for their part in creating them.
On that note . . .
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:
Decades of delighting in the Gutter Games of Government has crippled this country. By being in bondage to baggage and baseless beliefs, painfully obvious lies become calcified as fact. The complexity in explaining that is apples & oranges as it gets when compared to the transactional nature of news and social-media norms.
Understanding how seemingly unrelated events impact one another takes time and effort to digest. But now information is so funneled in a fashion to your liking — anything that doesn’t fit the formula is foreign language.
It’s pure fantasy to think that you can ignore key dimensions of a problem and magically solve it.
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.
Sycophants wallowing in these cesspools of certitude act like influencers are some of the greatest minds to ever live:
For repeatedly rehashing run-of-the-mill ideas that have no chance of making a dent in the hermetically minds of our times (which includes theirs). But there’s a mass-market for failure in this fantasyland where success is the glory of the perpetual pursuit itself. It’s all window dressing— where inquiry that holds up a mirror to their magical thinking is met with venom.
Even the professionals who should know better — don’t. They’re so preoccupied with trying to educate others about bias that they’re blinded by their own. Is there anyone out there who has the guts to call this crap by its right name and get to work on what we can do about it?
It’s all window dressing
- You thirst for critical thinking — as long it doesn’t threaten your interests (or is even perceived as such)
- You follow the facts — so long as they’re going in the direction you desire
- You demand accountability — as long you & yours aren’t being held accountable
- You preach responsibility — as long as it fits the formula that works for you
- You love the idea of talking about ideas — so long as there’s no work involved that would interrupt your incessant Tweeting of your concerns
- And that idea damn sure better be about exposing the enemy — because you sure as hell have no role in who’s to blame — of course!
The shitshow of America has eroded reason beyond recognition — eating away all that was once right and good. We could do something about that.
But you’re busy
[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. This is one of a series of stories on factions acting as force fields of fallacy for the Left & Right:
Shielding you from the whole truth while you’re pursuing part of it believing you’re after all of it.
Mark Twain’s opening quote to The Big Short beautifully captures the clusterf#$% of a country that America has become: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Adulthood is about spending the time to think before talking . . . Adulthood is about controlling our emotions, learning to take a deep breath and modulating our moments of anger or frustration
I didn’t imagine these things you all have in common to varying degrees:
- You’re not entirely wrong but think you’re entirely right (on everything)
- You sling assumptions & snippets of certitude first and never ask questions later
- In many cases — you race to disagree before you even know what you’re disagreeing about (invariably bailing to avoid discovering how dead wrong you really are)
- You don’t listen to anything you don’t like — so you never learn how to have the humility to change your mind when it matters most
- You brazenly ignore your own failings while obsessing over the opposition’s
- Many of you are Tweeting your lives away on beliefs that are demonstrably false (poisoning the portion of truth that you do represent)
- You won’t carefully consider anything outside your comfort zone (never knowing that how you handle the uncomfortable is key to addressing your concerns)
- If it’s even perceived as threatening your immediate interests: You won’t be burdened by anything that requires real time & effort to think it through (never mind my efforts are in everybody’s long-term best interest)
- You deceive yourselves as part of a machine that systematically ensures your eagerness in compliance
- From decades of being increasingly accommodating of liars aligned with your interests: You kept lowering the bar — and now there is no bar
- All of the above embodies the legacy you’re leaving behind (and much worse)
To concisely capture the absurdity that’s canon across these echo chambers where childish behavior is celebrated:
Imagine a club for international travel made up entirely of people without a passport. Day after day, they talk about their love of going somewhere — with no interest in anyone who’s been somewhere. There was a time when people were willing to take a journey to understand what doesn’t instantly compute. Those days are long gone.
And this — is the height of your contribution:
Think of what you’re saying
You can get it wrong and still you think that it’s alright
Think of what I’m saying
We can work it out and get it straight, or say goodnight . . .
Try to see it my way
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong
While you see it your way
There’s a chance that we might fall apart before too long . . .
If you’re not gonna abide by the rules you want others to follow — what business do you have expecting anyone else to? 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.
You’d be amazed by the clarity that comes from curiosity to question what you think you know. I sure don’t see the attraction in this way of life below:
It is as though with some people — those who most avidly embrace the “we are right” view — have minds that are closed from the very get-go, and they are entirely incapable of opening them, even just a crack.
There is no curiosity in them. There are no questions in their minds. There are no “what ifs?” or “maybes.”
— Laura Knight-Jadczyk
What I do takes work: Time & effort to think it through:
This — is entertainment
A bit about work
Work is a Journey on Which You Welcome Challenge
Work does not instantly respond — work digs to discover and inquires to clarify. Work is difficult and demands discernment. Work wonders, pauses, listens, absorbs, and reflects.
Work does not rest on who’s right and who’s wrong: Work wants to know if there’s something more to see, something to learn, something that sharpens the mind. Work never stops building on the foundation of your own work and what you learn from the work of others.
Work works its way through material that is not easy.
Work recognizes complexity and the demands of in-depth explanation. Work will go on a trip to ideas that take time and effort to understand. Work knows that you can’t see your way through to a solution without understanding the different dimensions of a problem.
Work does not defend before you consider
Work does not race to conclusions — work arrives at them through careful consideration. Work is willing is rethink what you think you know. Work takes integrity, courtesy, curiosity, courage, and decency.
Work comes with the willingness to be wrong.
Work is not self-satisfied. Work does not sling snippets of certitude — work crafts argument on the merits. Work is an exchange where each party takes information into account. Work does not issue childish insults — work demands that you act your age.
You’ll find that work is far more fruitful and fulfilling than ease.
Work rises & falls
As this is the prism through which we work:
How we weigh what we see and measure our response. We’ll fall short from time to time — but those willing to work will keep each other in check.
Work respects your intelligence by using it — and shows respect to others as we work our way to mutual respect. Work won’t be pretty and might even get ugly — but work will do what it takes to work it out.
And if you wanna start solving problems — work is what it’s gonna take.
This — is not that
And it’s all the same charade in one form or another in these factions.
Like the Logic Lovers in the Facts Over Feelings Parade, Cognitive Dissonance Camp, and all the other factions in the language they fancy: It’s all about the window dressing in lighting it up in lip service to virtues. Ever-so bold behind force fields of fallacy that butcher those “beliefs.“
Where the spirt of this is nowhere to be found . . .
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, unspeakable damage, and $2.2 trillion.
Never heard of him . . .
I imagine not — in a country that can’t even get this straight:
By Design
America Remains Mired in the Murky
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:
Give me a grade-schooler at breakfast and I’ll have this cleared up by lunch: As they haven’t yet learned to look away from the obvious to deny the undeniable. 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? Taking on the entire country by myself is worlds away from what everyone else is doing. If you even understood that much — that would be something.
You could feel insulted — or stop insulting your intelligence for people who don’t give a damn about you.
Wut?
In a culture where even a PhD acts like an imbecile in the face of overtures he doesn’t instantly understand: Run-of-the-mill methods aren’t gonna make a dent in the envelope of intransigence encasing hermetically sealed minds of our times. “Wut?” — reflects a society tuning in to people you think are geniuses for telling you what you wanna hear and thinking you’re enlightened for it.
People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results. They choose it because it seems authoritative and familiar — and I’m not and never have been familiar.
— Michael Burry, The Big Short
Countless people would instantly fire back to dispute that claim about their choice in authority, but exactly zero could craft a sound argument to back it up. How do I know that? Because the ones who instantly replied have an insatiable appetite for:
Affirmation independent of all findings
— Peck borrowing from Buber
They sling assumptions first and never ask questions later.
We’re not talking about your love of talking about your love affair with facts — we’re talking about having a history of objective scrutiny that shows your commitment. And for people who flaunt their love for facts — you sure have a helluva lot of hate for irrefutable facts that fly in the face of your calcified convictions.
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
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.
For instance: I had never even heard of Rittenhouse until right around the verdict. I can’t offer an informed opinion on the matter, but just from the video alone — I don’t know what the Left is looking at.
And they don’t either.
Like the Right, they carry baggage into every issue — so the next outrage is just another vehicle to further their agenda. What I think of these people running around with rifles is precisely to the point of this entire site: That I can strip away anything extraneous to see a situation for exactly what is: On the evidence & moments that matter most.
This nation has no such notion
Let’s face it: Your track record is not what I would call astute. 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).
I fail to understand how you think we can solve anything in a country that can’t even get the self-evident straight:
From the fountains in the mountains
Comes the water runnin’ cool and clear and blue
And it flows down from the hills
And it goes down to the towns and passes through
When it gets down to the cities
Then the water turns into a dirty gray
It’s poisoned and polluted
By the people as it goes along its way
Don’t go near the water children
See the fish all dead upon the shore
Don’t go near the water
Water isn’t water anymore . . .
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
The second you shun evidence that doesn’t fit the narrative you want — you have contaminated your judgment. How quickly you come to your conclusions — and what you’re willing to ignore to solidify them:
That is the underlying message of my efforts.
I’m not and never have been familiar . . .
Debunking the WMD delusion & Trayvon tale is a conduit for showing how this nation systematically derails debate. “Everybody believed Iraq had WMD” is not a valid argument any more than “armed only with Skittles.” By the way — how many of you know what Trayvon actually looked like?
It’s not the kid on People magazine I assure you.
I’m not interested in defending Zimmerman — my aim is to expose the irrational behavior of blindly defending Martin and the damage you did by doing so. Taking on all of America is not path to popularity, I assure you. What possible motive would anyone have for doing that — unless it was truth itself?
What I said below in my doc should make that abundantly clear:
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
This is a case built on concrete evidence of mathematical certainty: Supported by exhaustively detailed arguments (of which you have exactly zero chance of refuting).
But to the “logic lovers” — it doesn’t matter:
So loving of logic:
For 20 years, these people have made nearly impossible to put a pinprick through the envelope of intransigence encasing their brain. Not the tiniest trace of reasoning can be found in anything I’ve come across in decades of dealing with the doubt-free on WMD. And of all those I’ve challenged — their knowledge combined could fit into a thimble with space to spare.
For telling undeniable truth that takes both parties to task — I’m practically spit on for following principles those same people promote on a daily basis.
Anything Goes on social media:
Or as I coined it
Where you can promote principles in one breath and abandon them the next. And get away with it with ease — because you’ve got friends:
Going for Gold in the Gutter Games of Government
The individual believer must have social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence we have specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, we would expect the belief to be maintained and the believers to attempt to proselyte or to persuade nonmembers that the belief is correct.
These five conditions specify the circumstances under which increased proselyting would be expected to follow disconfirmation.
— When Prophecy Fails
Anyone entering this discussion with sincerity — would come away realizing that there is no debate and there never was.
They just made it up
I’m a retired engineer, electrical not mechanical. You are absolutely correct about technical limits on materials such as this sub design. It’s insane this guy took the sub to its breaking point. It’s sad but a good lesson to future explorers. Don’t push the physical limitations of the materials and design.
— YouTube user
Strikingly similar principles — don’t ya think?
But why put your critical thinking skills to the test on this . . .
When you can congratulate yourselves on this:
On Titan, time-honored materials and safety standards of DSVs are taken into account to accurately assess the situation. We listen to experts and respect their input because it makes sense. Had Stockton done the same, he and his crew would still be alive.
And if this nation didn’t look at everything through a political lens — a lot of people would still be alive.
And lo and behold: The number of experts who thought carbon fiber was sound for DSVs — matches the number of nuclear scientists who supported Powell’s baseless assertions on the tubes that took us to war:
Exactly Zero
Something’s Not Right
Just as something wasn’t right with Stockton Rush and Elizabeth Holmes (both of ’em dying to be disruptors (and one of ’em went all the way). Yeah, Rush got Titan to work for a while, but it was pure folly from the start — just like the hackery behind her claim to fame.
Why would anyone believe that you could conduct 200 blood tests in this little box? Maybe someday someone will — what do I know? I know something’s not right when I see it. To be sure, I’ve been fooled a time or two — but that’s at the core of what this is all about:
To learn from our mistakes.
And lo and behold: Those who bought into her fantasy would have seen who she really was had they simply started with these 3 words and followed their instincts:
Something’s not right . . .
A.K.A.
Speaking of Holmes
Another parallel is how our culture places excessive faith in people based on image, not the totality of their record. Titan’s passengers put their trust in their pilot — because surely if he’s going along, it must OK. I’m hardly comparing the naivete of Titan’s crew to the wildly misguided belief in this media darling.
I’m simply saying we’ve become a country that’s way too easily accepting of those who speak to us.
In a society that’s either gushing with over-the-top praise or seething with over-the-top scorn — whatever happened to something in between? Ya know, balance — which was nowhere to be found in the fallacies that follow:
The Mariana Trench of False Equivalence
But if an experimental approach to discovery is a crime, then we might as well put the Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh and Apollo’s lunar-bound astronauts on trial.
And while deep exploration of the oceans carries obvious risks, I can’t quite accept the notion that he was cavalier about it all.
Then you’re as delusional as he was:
- A delusion is a mistaken belief that is held with strong conviction even when presented with superior evidence to the contrary
- Characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument
- Something a person believes and wants to be true, when it is actually not true
And here’s his motive — in the very next sentence:
I knew Stockton through a mutual friend of ours in our hometown of Seattle, and within those circles of acquaintance he was known as a terrific husband, father, grandfather and friend, with an infectious, fun-loving curiosity that will linger as an influence long beyond his death.
His risks were calculated ones, however flawed the calculations might turn out to be.
Right on cue | Never fails
Stockton took shortcuts that cost him his life and the lives of those who placed misguided faith in him. Elizabeth Holmes took shortcuts that put her in prison and made fools out of a lot of people.
Some were young and sincere who simply got lost in the dream of doing something special. Others should have known better, but miserably failed to ask tough questions in a culture that craves ease and the quick win.
Speaking of #winning and records:
Before this guy got cancer — he’s ridden the Tour de France four times. His best place was 36th overall. In a mountain stage, he never finished within 8 minutes of the winner (mostly he was 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes behind). So how can you get cancer, come back from cancer, and be completely transformed? And this was a sport that the previous year had been revealed to be a doping circus.
— David Walsh, The Undoing of Tour de France Hero Lance Armstrong
Something’s not right
Walsh asked questions unwelcomed by a world wrapping its arms around a cancer survivor who came back to dominate the sport of cycling. Incredibly, no matter how times the truth comes to light about people claiming to be something they are not:
Even in the face of overwhelming and irrefutable evidence . . .
You still won’t start with those 3 little words of wonder (all the while insisting the other side do what you won’t).
Speaking of cognitive dissonance and the refusal to wonder:
The Cognitive Dissonance Camp is another clown factory flooding the internet with clichéd crap like “the cognitive dissonance is strong in this one.” This faction is seemingly competing for who can say, “cognitive dissonance” the most. No doubt many of ’em know much more about it than I do (which isn’t saying much since I’m no scholar on it).
But congratulating yourselves for Tweeting about it is not what I call serious-minded conversation (or even qualifying as conversation at all). Add in professionals promoting what they’ve published that’ll accomplish exactly what all their other efforts did (along with their colleagues across their industry combined):
Absolutely nothing that’ll move America a millimeter in the right direction.
It’s just another charade like all the other factions: Rehashing run-of-the-mill ideas that don’t that have a snowball’s chance in hell of making a dent.
While I’m sitting here with a rock-solid idea that could the catalyst for a tectonic shift in America (that could be accomplished with a handful of people and hardly any money). But the Cabal of the Credentialed and their followers are so preoccupied with trying to educate others about bias that they’re blinded by their own.
And why bother considering fresh ideas that might work when you can stay busy on what won’t?
So why don’t you take a break from Tweeting for a day or two, actually learn something about your cognitive dissonance, stop saying stupid like “the cognitive dissonance is strong in this one.”
And we can get to work on doing something that matters.
Speaking of competing for attention — the fawning over the professional know-it-all that follows: Is by far the most dangerous faction all.
The more I learn about the sub, the more it sounds like a 50/50 coin flip suicide expedition than exploration.
Lots of intelligent commentary floating around. It’s refreshing to see all the sound analysis I’ve seen on the sub. And from experts to casual observers — most everyone recognizes reality on Rush.
Who doesn’t?
The same people who always don’t see something for what it is: Those too close to the situation to objectively evaluate it (almost invariably with motive in some form — innocent or otherwise). I realize Cameron’s craft was designed to go 3 times deeper than Titanic:
But it’s just a striking contrast on the look of seriousness alone.
And so’s this . . .
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
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.
I wish a buck was still silver
It was back when the country was strong
Merle’s sorrowful song has an uplifting twist at the end, and without that final 45 seconds — you’d miss the meaning of the message. The underlying meaning in mine:
Your beliefs should be backed by your record. I’m old-fashioned that way.
In John Wayne: The Life and Legend, the author relays a story about The Duke growing up as Marion Robert Morrison — and how every day he rode eight miles to elementary school on a horse named Jenny.
No matter how much he fed his horse, Jenny was still too thin.
Some ladies in town took notice of what they perceived as malnutrition and reported his family to the Humane Society. After a vet examined the horse it was diagnosed to have a disease and eventually they had to put her down. On top of losing his beloved horse, Marion was understandably unhappy with how he was treated:
[A] sense of outrage over being falsely accused never left him. “I learned you can’t always judge a person or a situation by the way it appears on the surface,” he remembered. “You have to look deeply into things before you’re in a position to make a proper decision.”
This nation has no such notion
“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.
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.”
A lot of that goin’ around
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.
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:
She also saw wooden-headedness as a certain proclivity for “acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by facts.”
The outcome of which fashioned a culture of no consequences.
And along came — this
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.”
— Russ Hoyle
The Refusal to Benefit from Experience
Sowell is lauded for calling out problems he helped create. A lot of that goin’ around too! 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.
Dumb, dishonest, and delusional wars doesn’t either:
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
I’m not out to “DESTROY” Sowell
Quite the contrary! Stick around — you’ll see.
But lemme put it in terms you’ll understand: If he stepped into a debate with me on this matter, the beating he’d take would be biblical. If you think you can challenge me on that, I invite you to try. I’ve been inviting you for a really long time . . .
You walked into the party
Like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror
As you watched yourself gavotte . . .
I know nothing about the subject, but I’m happy to give you my expert opinion.
Everything that guy just said is bullshit!
Touting technicalities as “facts” doesn’t get it done:
Especially when you’re worshipped for selling this shit . . .
Just what would it take
For you to do what you say you do?
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 DAILY TELEGRAPH (LONDON February 19th, 2004): Mr Chalabi, by far the most effective anti-Saddam lobbyist in Washington, shrugged off charges that he had deliberately misled U.S. intelligence.
“We are heroes in error. As far as we’re concerned we’ve been entirely successful. Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important.”
A ton of that goin’ around
And on that note
If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything: And you do it by holding one man to his own standards:
A Professional Know-It-All who fabricated a fantasyland of “following the facts where they lead.”
What does it say to you that I had to come up with an alias for Sowell — just so his crowd will consider his claims in isolation from his immaculate image? Just as this cartoon captures what words cannot — so too does the implication behind the alias. What would you call someone who shoots their mouth off without addressing the evidence — but banks on their fabricated reputation to create the impression that they did?
That Sowell’s supporters instantly sling assumptions about my motives (coupled with rapid-fire ridicule for satisfaction in full) — flies in the face of the principles upon which he’s put on a pedestal.
Ya know — like this
I imagine must of his opposition probably is out to destroy him (just as his camp craves to demolish them). That’s your world — not mine. Discovering the difference is at the core of what abiding by principles is all about: To arrive at conclusions — not jump to them. But thanks to the internet and the cable clans paving the way for the onslaught of the utterly absurd — everything is poisoned by perception and hypocrisy now.
And by the way: Clickbait for battles you’ll do all over again tomorrow — doesn’t strike me as destroying anything.
The Tweet below is the only instance of a supporter seeing his hypocrisy plain as day from the get-go. But her assumption that I’m writing off his whole career because of his dishonesty on WMD — is a boilerplate comeback that’s wildly off the mark from what Sowell supposedly represents.
I’ve never even hinted anything of the kind.
Had she done more than skim my site, she’d know that. But who has time to digest what someone’s saying when you’re racing to respond on what you perceive?
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.
I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth
There’s a way we can harness folly from the past for the benefit of the future — A.K.A. Learning:
I’m not looking for followers — I’m looking for leaders . . .
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:
It’s 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.
Conventional approaches have repeatedly failed and won’t put a pinprick in the atmosphere of absurdity suffocating the country. 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.
We could work wonders with my idea: Which would only get better with what all walks of life would add to it.
All ya gotta do — is do what you say you do . . .
And my idea is a framework for debate that boxes you in to do exactly that. You won’t like it — but here’s the deal: Your opposition won’t either. And who knows, you might learn to love embracing challenge, changing your mind, and the fruits from demanding across-the-board accountability.
This — is not that
This — is Broadcasting Your Beliefs About That
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.
When it comes to ascertaining the truth:
I don’t care what your cause is, who’s in the White House, who controls Congress or the courts. I learned early on in life that what you want gets in the way of what you see. There is no amount of gain you could give me to believe something to be true that is false.
When warranted, I will defend those I despise and call out those I like. I call a spade a spade, period.
I love moments of truth and measurement that put my principles to the test. One of my favorites is the Florida election fiasco of 2000. I just wanted the right thing to be done — whether it served my interests or not was irrelevant. That sense of fairness is so foreign I might as well be speaking another language.
And yet many of us were taught the same lessons. I took ’em to heart — had you done the same, my many efforts over decades wouldn’t exist. 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 on this site:
The.Deal.Is.That.We.Connect.These.Dots . . .
You see
Imagine!
There are powerful forces that make damn sure you don’t — and it shows! By not listening and never adjusting — America has miserably failed to connect the dots for decades. While serving your interests in silos that suffocate any attempt at conversation that doesn’t toe the company line: You do cosmic damage to those interests you so desperately defend. I’ve got a rock-solid idea on what we can do about that, but you’re in my way.
And what entirely escapes you is that you’re in your own way (and always have been).
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.
This nation has no such notion
You’re too busy touting your beliefs to abide by them:
How fitting for that reflection . . .
Boxes of beliefs that reflect the manufactured image in the mirror. You take endless delight in congratulating yourselves in celebration of values you share with venom in victory:
Utterly oblivious to how this behavior predictably harms the very values you’re defending.
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:
It’s pure fantasy to think that you can ignore key dimensions of a problem and magically solve it. 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.
If you think you’re making progress because of ever-increasing attention to your concerns . . .
I suggest you reconsider
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! You’re just pounding away at problems without any examination of the efficacy of your efforts.
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:
No one is doing that — and it shows!
Thanks to the internet and the cable clans paving the way for the onslaught of the utterly absurd — everything is poisoned by perception and hypocrisy now. Pay no mind to how many times we go backwards by the means in which you move forward.
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
But you know best
Your March of Folly mindset always has . . .
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
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.
Speaking of Fashionable Folly
A preview for how I feel about woke:
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).
I fail to understand how you think we can solve anything in a country that can’t even get the self-evident straight:
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.”
A lot of that goin’ around
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”
By Design
America Remains Mired in the Murky
What does it say to you: That on evidence claimed as components to build a nuclear bomb — the “debate” was hijacked by 10-second sound bites? Shouldn’t any debate establish what the debate is actually about? What does it say about a country that can’t even establish that much on a matter of this magnitude?
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 road to reality is blocked by detours designed to keep you going in circles. Purveyors of poppycock reroute you with narratives that avoid detail like Black Death. The way out is to start with an inconsistency or two that’s narrow in scope — and take the trail where it leads.
To ascertain the truth on any topic:
If you’ve got something concrete to go on — that’s your point of entry. By all means, keep the door open in every direction. But by nailing down the definitive first, it paves a clearer path to all the rest.
This country does the exact opposite on everything — lumping it all together and never even approaching where you should have started in the first place:
This chart is misleading in several respects . . . Beams centrifuge never actually worked . . . We can infer . . .
Sounds pretty sloppy to me
Perhaps we should have a conversation to clear up what all this means on issues that have eroded reason beyond recognition?
And you want to be taken seriously on race relations when you won’t even acknowledge what kind of can he was carrying?
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:
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
The second you shun evidence that doesn’t fit the narrative you want — you have contaminated your judgment. How quickly you come to your conclusions — and what you’re willing to ignore to solidify them:
That is the underlying message of my efforts.
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.
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.
One glance at the doc imagery and I’d know:
This guy’s not f#@%*!` around!
Instincts & insight like that don’t come from acting like this . . .
I point you to a 7-part, 2 hours and 40 minutes doc — that distills a story that demanded a massive amount of effort, thought, research, and writing: And you tap a Tweet with a talking point or two — thinking you can inform me.
I offered you overwhelming and irrefutable evidence that exhaustively exposes the biggest and most costly lie in modern history — taking both parties to task for it (on that issue and then some): 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 simply watched the doc in the first place.
You think I wanted to chop up my doc into clips to accommodate America’s attention span of a child?
But still that wasn’t enough — as you won’t consider 160 seconds, let alone 160 minutes. 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 (not to mention being in gross breach of those precious principles you preach).
You’re all trying to plow through problems when you should be going around them. Ray Liotta perfectly captured this concept in Copland:
You don’t drive down Broadway to get to Broadway. You move diagonal . . . you jag
If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything: And you do it by holding one man to his own standards: A Professional Know-It-All who fabricated a fantasyland of “following the facts where they lead.”
For 20 years, I’ve been practically spit on for following principles those same people promote on a daily basis. I wrote and produced a documentary to address such behavior, but in the last 2 years — I’ve seen savagery beyond anything that inspired it. And we’re not talkin’ run-of-the-mill politics here — this involves irrefutable evidence of mathematical certainty (of world-altering consequence, no less).
To claim that Iraq WMD wasn’t a lie should be like saying we didn’t land on the moon. As I wrote and produced the most exhaustive doc ever done on WMD, I would know. 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
On the biggest and most costly lie in modern history, Sowell peddled partisan hackery that poisons political discourse and butchers debate to this day. On top of flagrantly ignoring evidence as concrete as it gets, he has a habit of toeing the party line. It took me all of 10 minutes to spot Sowell’s painfully obvious hypocrisy on multiple fronts. On WMD — it took 2.
And yet somehow this has magically gone unnoticed by the devout for decades.
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.
Ah, so that story is a conduit to shed light on a larger story — and by understanding how the components all connect (and having insight into the different mindsets of high-minded personalities protecting Sowell): There’s a way to expose him that’s in their best interests, his, the country’s and the world as well)?
In a sea of sameness, how do you blow right by an idea that’s radically new but rooted timeless truths that could turn the tide? Have you ever heard of anyone taking someone to task for the purpose of putting them in a positive light that could change the course of history?
That sounds intriguing — but that’s me.
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.
My idea is simple:
Cutting through our Crap is King culture to get there — is not.
In the Crap is King culture we’ve created:
Infantile insults are celebrated
The doubt-free who don’t do their homework are the experts. Those who belittle and outright reject correction — are the righteous and wise. The ones with courage to admit when they’re wrong — are the weak. Tireless dedication is mercilessly mocked — while intellectual laziness is esteemed.
Original thinking and uniqueness are bashed — while conforming to the trite is trumpeted. Depth is discarded with disdain — while shallowness is embraced with love.
The honest & sincere are shunned — while manipulators & liars are welcomed with open arms.
This is my story — and if you read it in full, you’ll find it’s part of your story too. You’ve all dealt with the same behavior I have — the difference is that I get it from every direction:
You don’t really need to find out what’s goin’ on
You don’t really wanna know just how far it’s gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry . . .
We can do “The Innuendo,” we can dance and sing
When it’s said and done, we haven’t told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Well, they know it and I know it — but clearly, you don’t:
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 . . .
Explaining America’s decline over decades of delight in the Gutter Games of Government — is apples & oranges as it gets compared to the transactional nature of news and social-media norms.
Understanding how seemingly unrelated events impact one another takes time and effort to digest. And keep in mind — my mission is not driven by changing your values, but rather the manner in which you pursue them. By just recognizing that the challenges I face are different from the standard fare in America — you might find some understanding of what I’m up against.
When taking on the entire country — you can’t just lay it all out in a linear fashion. I faced this same problem in structuring my documentary and even in the naming of it.
What’s with the different names of your doc?
What’s with your mindset that necessitates massaging it with harmonious headlines? Alas, I have to account for this “having said that” culture we’ve created — where you’ve gotta establish some degree of shared scrutiny to pave the way for what you really wanna say.
Utterly ridiculous
And after you’ve soothed their minds with some agreement — that goodwill goes right out the window the moment you mention anything that challenges their calcified convictions.
How do you convey fair-mindedness in a culture that instantly supports or scorns on lickety–split perception alone? You can rattle off personalities you perceive as fair-minded, no doubt. But how many of you have dealt with any of ’em one-on-one? And of that group, how many have put their principles to the test on matters practically woven into their DNA?
Stick around — and you’ll see how some household names of the fair-minded behaved in the face of irrefutable fact of mathematical certainty (of world-altering consequence, no less). That may sound cryptic at the moment, but it sure sounds like it leads to something pretty specific, doesn’t it!
So I will ask you once again . . .
How do you expose the whole charade when bona fide fair-mindedness is not welcome here?
When you figure that out, lemme know. In the meantime, forget the mile — I’ll settle for just putting on the shoes. My efforts revolve around how people allow emotion to run roughshod over reason when their interests are at stake. That I don’t isolate this behavior to one side or the other should speak volumes.
It seems we have all the time in the world to promote the false — but not a second to spare for the truth. “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on” — a quote that’s been around in various forms for over 300 years (evidently the original being from 1710):
Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect.
I know the feeling, all too well
The image below is especially fitting for the times — since it’s a myth popularized by Washington Irving and others.
According to The Flat Earth Myth: The real myth is the idea that anyone ever believed in a flat earth:
Essentially no one during the Middle Ages believed the world was flat. Of the many myths about the Middle Ages this one is perhaps the most widespread, and yet at the same time the most roundly and authoritatively debunked.
In fact, the evidence is so overwhelming that refuting this myth is like refuting the idea that the moon is made of cheese.
Same on WMD — and then some!
“Bias” gets all the press
When prejudice is paramount to the problem. If it were just bias, convincing you with overwhelming and irrefutable evidence might still be difficult — but you’d be willing to be convinced.
Prejudice doesn’t roll that way. In fact, it doesn’t roll anywhere — as you don’t budge one bit and take pride in it to boot. As a friend comically put it:
It’s not “Pride and Bias”
Would Einstein’s quote would have the same bite with “bias”? How about “Without Passion or Prejudice”? The divide between “bias” and “prejudice” is not a distinction without a difference — meaning matters (or at least it used to).
He wasn’t talking about any particular type of prejudice. But right on cue, in response to a Tweet I wrote that included:
The prejudice in Einstein’s era pales in comparison to today
Someone seized on it instantly assuming it was about racial prejudice . . .
Never mind the context
After all, why bother trying to understand what someone’s saying when it’s so much easier to jump to conclusions first and never ask questions later? You’d be amazed by what you can see when you just take a little time and leave your assumptions behind.
The idea for that doc came out of doing research for my unfinished book. When I returned from interviewing a world-renowned nuclear scientist, the aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict gave me a golden opportunity. I needed a way to illustrate irrational behavior without showing any favoritism — and now I had 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 of you know what Trayvon actually looked like?
It’s not the kid on People magazine I assure you.
I’m not interested in defending Zimmerman — my aim is to expose the irrational behavior of blindly defending Martin and the damage you did by doing so.
Does the Democratic Party have a history of manipulating racially charged incidents? Undeniably! Has the left-leaning side of the cable clans increasingly accommodated Democrats over the years? Without question! Can you conclude what happened to Trayvon and Michael Brown with the same certainty as the death of George Floyd?
No way — but ya did, and in lickety-split fashion.
And on that note
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
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. I’ve got a lot to say about that, but more importantly, an idea for what to do about it.
The 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?
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): This is emblematic of their “arguments”:
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?
This story is as overwhelming and undeniable as it gets — and yet not the tiniest trace of reasoning or molecule of 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. What does it say to you that I had to come up with an alias for the figure in question — just so his crowd will consider his claims in isolation from his immaculate image?
Just as this cartoon captures what words cannot — so too does the implication behind the alias.
What would you call someone who shoots their mouth off without addressing the evidence — but banks on their fabricated reputation to create the impression that they did?
I point you to a 7-part, 2 hours and 40 minutes doc — that distills a story that demanded a massive amount of effort, thought, research, and writing: And you tap a Tweet with a talking point or two — thinking you can inform me.
For two decades, I’ve been practically spit on for following principles those same people promote on a daily basis.
“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?
Someone wonders
Not long before this Tweet — this fanatical follower of PKIA (who’s seen as some kind saint-like Sherlock Holmes): Was condemning my efforts like all the rest that day (and every day).
And then he opened the doc . . .
That’s the exception
This is the Rule . . .
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.
And yet here we are
20 years later . . .
And now, even now
The cat . . . TOTALLY out of the BAG!
With the sheer specificity you’ve seen so far, it astounds me that anyone think that I’d randomly inject race into a documentary mainly about WMD. You’d think I’d invented the idea of opening a presentation with a parallel (only to tie into all later). And that embodies just how far off the rails America has gone — that nothing computes unless funneled in a fashion to your liking.
This connection between the topics clear pretty quickly. 3 minutes and 33 seconds into the Prologue — the parallel in the Profile Principle is revealed. Had you not made up your mind inside of 60 seconds: Crying foul in your confusion over my incoherence from injecting a seemingly unrelated issue into the mix:
Ahhh . . .now I see where he’s going with this
Imagine!
3 minutes and 33 seconds — to understand a key connection on issues that shaped the society you see today. And even that — was too much a burden.
I would have gone with the title above that came to mind later for the promo clips. Trayvon would still be the hook into the whole thing — I just wouldn’t have used his name in the title if I had a better idea.
If I had it to do over again . . .
This nation has no such notion. WMD was old news — and barely even registered when it was hot off the press, so I needed a way to frame the story in another light. As the problems that plague America are interrelated, there was no point in just doing another documentary on WMD alone — no matter how exhaustively detailed. It needed something to address the radically irrational behavior in a country that’s gone out of its mind.
And that — was 9 years ago!
I’m addressing problems at their roots while America perpetually spins its wheels on symptoms. And yeah, I could have come up with a better title — but all of 2 minutes into it, just how much more crystal clear could I be?
What I’m calling “The Trayvon Travesty” embodies the ubiquitous behavioral patterns of apologists who defend their position purely on faith — and the “Saga of Self-Deception” is the debauchery of platform politicking that has become America’s pastime.
— Richard W. Memmer: Prologue
Nobody cared about WMD anymore, and truth be told — the bulk of the bunch who do care, don’t really. But they sure love to Tweet about it. You can’t even imagine how I cringe at this crap:
And all this crap . . .
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.
The cult-like following of Thomas Sowell has no such notion — showing contempt for correction beyond anything I’ve ever seen. As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something. He’s worshipped as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes — never mind his history of flagrantly ignoring facts to toe the party line.
And that — is an opportunity!
Speaking of a lack of seriousness
Oh, how you cry for accountability . . .
Just as long as it doesn’t interrupt your incessant Tweeting of your concerns.
You can’t even imagine how I cringe at your utterly ridiculous and empty Tweets — which is how I feel about all these factions wallowing in their cesspool of certitude and self-congratulations. And truth be told, those who landed on the right side on Iraq WMD: Most of ‘em don’t know much more than those deny the undeniable.
Just because you were right doesn’t necessarily mean you arrived at it intelligently — and being reinforced by casual conviction makes for increasingly sloppy & stupid thinking.
Searching “Iraq WMD” delivers no shortage of Tweets tying the times to intelligence failures from 20 years ago. Of the countless people issuing their daily distrust in intel over Iraq, how many could tell me what these acronyms mean?
- ORNL
- INR
- JAEIC
- WINPAC
- NGA
- DIA
And once I tell you, how many could tell me what role those places played on Iraq WMD?
Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee. Weapons-Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Defense Intelligence Agency.
Maybe you were right on Iraq and maybe on some matters today, but just being right is worlds away from being fully informed. Who has time for that? All the more reason why it’s so critical to learn from others — as we can’t know it all. But in a world where “nobody’s perfect”:
We sure have a helluva lot of know-it-alls.
Only an infinitesimal fraction of America could reply with informed answers on the acronyms above — and yet you’re dead certain you know what’s what. The real story is in the machinery behind the scenes — people and places you’ve never even heard of.
Anybody can rail on Rumsfeld, Rice, Bush, Cheney, and Powell.
But connecting the dots on the people they employed to engineer this poppycock is where it’s at — along with all their accomplices who shamelessly sold these lies and got away with it.
With a helluva lot of help
[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 get off your ass to see 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.“
Speaking of responsibility
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
Adulthood is about spending the time to think before talking . . . Adulthood is about controlling our emotions, learning to take a deep breath and modulating our moments of anger or frustration.
–Kalev Leetaru, Social Media Is Reverting Society From Adults Back Into Children
When you have no idea what the argument is:
Making no effort or inquiry to understand, no less: Wrapping quotes around “argument” is as ridiculous as using air quotes incorrectly. If you make an attempt to debate in good faith, I don’t give a shit if you can spell your arguments.
But Jesus, just act your age — because this childish crap is killing us (and countless are already dead because of it).
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”
8. Old information at the beginning of the sentence, new information at the end.
— Steven Pinker
How do you feel about no new information — anywhere?
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.
I couldn’t agree more
But there’s another reason why so many people misunderstand so many issues.
Professional know-it-alls like you pull stunts like this while peddling lines like that as cover: To whitewash your record of patently obvious hypocrisy and lies.
And you — after all your posturing:
Paved the way for your army of acolytes to kiss your ass — absolving themselves and you (without missing a beat in promoting principles full-time that all of you employ only part-time).
This — is pathetic!
It’s also — and 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. It’s time to start solving problems instead of endlessly talking about them and getting nowhere. To do that — first we gotta clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. And 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.
A student wrote of her psychology professor and co-author of the book below:
Tim Wilson taught me the importance of breaking problems down into more manageable pieces.
Lo and behold, at the bedrock of my idea is exactly that. And I don’t need mass appeal to make this happen, I just need to get to one man. Their field is forever fighting the forces of human nature while my solution banks on it. To understand that — you’d have to understand the story and different motivations of the influential figures involved.
It’s a domino effect by design — and whad’ya know:
Elliot Aronson was chosen by his peers as one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century
— Amazon’s About the Author
The forward he wrote in When Prophecy Fails was super helpful in framing my message in my documentary that illustrates the psychological gymnastics of human nature. Dr. Aronson was helpful again when he put me onto his friend and fellow renowned psychologist, Dr. Phil Zimbardo — “a very smart guy with incredible energy,” he added. Since Dr. Zimbardo is 90 years old — that’s saying something. For medical reasons, he’s unable to get involved, but in response to an email on the essence of my idea, he wrote:
Very Interesting and original
Even in his condition — he could see what so many can’t. They’re busy — and why bother considering fresh ideas that might work when you can stay busy on what won’t?
I’ve got the perfect pillar
As exposing Sowell is my bridge to expose it all:
I’m not just taking Thomas Sowell to task because he’s got it comin’ — I need this guy for what I have in mind to right this ship. The ultimate irony is that blind loyalty limits him — while my criticism could elevate him to heights that hero-worship ensures he’ll never go.
So, you’re saying that your plan will elevate Sowell to worldwide recognition — by holding him accountable? That if he comes clean — he could be the catalyst to turn the tide?
That’s exactly what I’m saying
It won’t matter that he blew it on WMD or why — all that matters is having the guts to say: “I was wrong and I’m trying to make it right.” In a culture consumed with feeling 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! Compelling him to admit where he’s wrong will work wonders for where he’s right. 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.
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:
Left & Right
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). The second you shun evidence that doesn’t fit the narrative you want — you have contaminated your judgment.
Debunking the WMD delusion & Trayvon tale is a conduit for showing how this nation systematically derails debate. “Everybody believed Iraq had WMD” is not a valid argument any more than “armed only with Skittles.” By the way — how many of you know what Trayvon actually looked like? It’s not the kid on People magazine, I assure you. I’m not interested in defending Zimmerman — my aim is to expose the irrational behavior of blindly defending Martin and the damage you did by doing so.
You want to be taken seriously on race relations when you won’t even concede to what kind of can he was carrying? And 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)
One Voice Became Two 