How do you feel about no new information — anywhere?
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
Which one looks like he’s on point?
Sowell’s “Rock Stars” of Reasoning . . .
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? . . .
And what happened to all this?
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.
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:
In the face of the opening image alone, it would be unthinkable for me to respond with something like the Tweeted reply that follows. At least he was polite (which is a helluva lot more than I can say about the savagery I’ve seen for over 2 years of telling this story on Sowell).
I’m practically spit on by people promoting principles I followed to find he didn’t.
Side-by-side imagery on how his half-truths in “Weapons and Crass Obstruction” are strikingly out of sync with “Show Me the Evidence”: Should be enough to clue you in on what this is about. But right on cue with social-media standards — he’s not looking to listen and learn, he’s looking to respond:
You may disagree with him, but saying that he doesn’t take responsibility…Responsibility for what exactly? He is super rigorous in general.
I offered up the evidence — it’s up to you to look at.
I already did all the work — I’m not gonna Tweet my arguments 280 characters at a time for your convenience. Look at it, don’t look it, or block me and politely move along — the ball’s in your court. But “Responsibility for what exactly?” is utterly ridiculous and insulting your intelligence to boot.
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:
“Compared to What?”
That principle is built into the props in that picture staring you straight in the face. And since this issue involves irrefutable evidence of mathematical certainty (in an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter): My answer to “What hard evidence do you have?” is as concrete as it gets. But without even considering what cannot be denied, you take the word of someone who didn’t even bother to mention the marquee evidence that Powell presented as the UN.
He is super rigorous in general.
Well, he sure as hell wasn’t here and in other half-ass articles I’ve seen by Sowell.
How could someone “super rigorous” miserably fail to approach anything remotely in the realm of “rigorous” on a matter of this magnitude? At minimum — your instincts should tell you that something’s not right. Start with that and you’ll be amazed by the clarity that comes with it.
And the more you look, the worse it gets. 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 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 . . .
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.
A couple of 2-minute reads
My 7-part series that’s the most exhaustively detailed doc ever done on WMD — totally 2 hours and 40 minutes. One guy goes into great detail and the other guy doesn’t go anywhere in detail. One guy puts props on display to help visualize the marquee evidence Powell presented — while the other guy makes no mention of it.
Which one strikes you as “digging through the data in order to understand the complex reality underneath”?
I do all the work, you do nothing and consider nothing — then blame me for failing to convince you. Anyone wanting to know the truth would not behave in ways that ensure they never will.
I’m not out to “DESTROY” Sowell
Quite the contrary! Stick around — you’ll see.
That his supporters instantly sling such assumptions (coupled with rapid-fire ridicule for satisfaction in full): Is in gross breach of the standards he espouses. Ya know — like this gem:
Sowell is simply a conduit through which to tell a larger story about the decline of America from decades of delight in the Gutter Games of Government (and what we can do about that in ways that have never been done). 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 Beliefs About That
I imagine most of the time his opposition probably is out to destroy him (just as you’re out to do the same to 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.
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
Pay no mind to how many times we go backwards by the means in which you move forward. And by the way: Clickbait for battles you’ll do all over again tomorrow — doesn’t strike me as destroying anything.
While you’re destroying everything:
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 your hero-worship ensures he’ll never go.
So, you’re saying that your plan will elevate Sowell to worldwide recognition — by holding him accountable? That if he comes clean — he could be the catalyst to turn the tide?
That’s exactly what I’m saying. It won’t matter that he blew it on WMD or why — all that matters is having the guts to say: “I was wrong and I’m trying to make it right.” In a culture consumed with 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).
I fail to understand how you think we can solve anything in a country that can’t even get the self-evident straight:
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.
Whatever my motives — what kind of fan egregiously fails to follow the bedrock principles of the person they put on a pedestal?
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.
The Yellow Brick Road is the path of America’s pursuits:
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.
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.
Sowell played along and got off scot-free (they all did — Democrats included) — which means he’s lauded for calling out problems he helped create. A lot of that goin’ around! 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 don’t either.
Nice work! . . .
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.
My surgical specificity in this clip puts this lie in its place in 5 minutes alone. As I said, I’m not out to “DESTROY” Sowell. But lemme put it in terms you’ll understand: If he stepped into a debate with me on this matter, the beating he’d take would be biblical.
If you think you can challenge me on that, I invite you to try. I’ve been inviting you for a really long time.
Trillion Dollar Tube
To take a story this complex and convoluted and boil its essence down to a few minutes was no small feat:
Imagine what I did with 160
“There is no skimming over the surface of a subject with [Hamilton]. He must sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on.”
— Major William Pierce (Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton)
Wouldn’t it be absurd to share that quote if my clip contained nothing but trite talking points? Some circles are not burdened by squaring their walk with their talk. They seem to think that advertising virtue equates to embodying it.
Case in point
People who talk glibly about “intelligence failure” act as if intelligence agencies that are doing their job right would know everything.
— Thomas Sowell
D.O.E’s standard is to spin a tube at 20% above 90,000 RPM before failure — so 48,000 short is a pretty loose definition of “rough indication.”
And since the entire point of testing should be to replicate the conditions of centrifuges, one would think that the full-blown testing would be performed before the N.I.E. was completed.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
Between Sowell’s words and mine
Which ones strike you as glib?
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.
At every turn . . .
The faithful tap dance around reality — oily evading anything that requires them to hold Sowell to his own standards.
Preach responsibility and take none:
Hard to Imagine:
That I have to explain that quote to people who seemingly live to flood the internet with his words.
He and his flock incessantly complain about the media — and they don’t make policy. But the second I scrutinize Sowell — suddenly you have new standards.
180 — how fitting
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.
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?
One picture is worth a thousand words
Which image below would you choose if you wanted to understand a fairly complex coding construct? 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? . . .
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.”
And that goes for all of America
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.
[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.
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.
I’ve always hated Twitter and when I’m done doing what I gotta do — I’m never goin’ back. Until then, I’m sending out a certain set of messages looking for intelligent life (fiercely independent thinkers who want to solve problems — not endlessly talk about them).
Think of my signals as a poor man’s SETI:
I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth
There’s a way we can harness folly from the past for the benefit of the future. It’s as out-of-the-box as it gets but rooted in timeless truths America made outdated. 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.
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. 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.
Conventional methods have repeatedly failed and won’t put a pinprick in the atmosphere of absurdity suffocating the country. It’s high time to take another approach. If we don’t take a long, hard look at what America has become and how we got here — we will not see a return to some semblance of recognizing reality in our lifetime. As my videographer perfectly put it:
We finally figured out what we were doing by the end
If we don’t change course as a country — we won’t. Mark my words: Your ways will seal that fate.
“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.
It’s a mighty fine day when you wake up to find high praise from a man of Glenn Loury’s caliber:
Twice!
But Loury wasn’t too keen on the truth when I took his hero to task.
You said they had no argument against your [R]ebuttal to Brown University’s letter on racism in the United States. Neither do you on your National Treasure. Instead of listening and learning on things you know nothing about — you let pride consume you. Maybe you don’t know Sowell as well as you thought you did:
And heaven forbid you hold him to the same standards pushing your popularity. You asked them to take stock — just don’t ask you. 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
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 called my writing “brilliant” in I Don’t Do Slogans on The Yellow Brick Road — and you’re “blown away” by my site: As long as I don’t challenge you to live up to the principles you preach when it comes at a price. Got it!
Sowell sold out to sell those books you stand by — and I wrote “Water is Not Wet — And I Stand by That” with the likes of Loury in mind.
How do we make people realize they’ve been lied to? You have to knock down one small pillar that’s easier to reach.
The people who Tweeted those lines I combined from a conversation I came across — had no idea that they perfectly captured the principle of my Clear the Clutter plan.
I’ve got the perfect pillar
As exposing Sowell is my bridge to expose it all
It’s time to start solving problems instead of endlessly talking about them and getting nowhere. And to do that — first we gotta clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything — and you do it by holding one man to his own standards.
To the uneducated, abstract ideas are unfamiliar; so is the detachment that is necessary to discover a truth out of one’s own knowledge and mental effort. The uneducated person views life in an intensely personal way — he knows only what he sees, hears or touches and what he is told by friends.
As the unknown sage puts it, “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
But more than ever, even the most educated minds act in an uneducated manner in service of their interests — and do catastrophic damage by doing so.
And that’s just the beginning.
What I have in mind is something of a JSOC — to join forces for a greater good that’s the gold standard of unimpeachable integrity. Institute for Honesty? Institute for Integrity? Something along those lines.
Let’s just stick with JSOC for now — since it sounds cool and it’s got a nifty badge and all. Whatever the name . . .
JSOC’s scrutiny spares no one
Note:
There are strategic steps as to how JSOC would be established (which I will outline in the companion piece). Right now, I’m just floating the concept:
And other ideas this nation so desperately needs:
You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you an inactive Spectator . . . I greatly fear that the arm of treachery and violence is lifted over us as a Scourge and heavy punishment from heaven for our numerous offences, and for the misimprovement of our great advantages.
If we expect to inherit the blessings of our Fathers, we should return a little more to their primitive Simplicity of Manners, and not sink into inglorious ease.
We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
— Abigail Adams, 16 October 1774
One Voice Became Two 