The law considers whether Mr. Rittenhouse believed himself to be in imminent threat of harm, but it does not factor in the choices he made in the hours and days beforehand that put him in the middle of a volatile situation, with guns drawn and tempers flaring.
— Nomia Iqbal & Anthony Zurcher, BBC News
A.K.A.
I can’t offer a well-informed opinion on that story, 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. The abysmal ability of America to argue on the merits never ceases to amaze me. 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 it is:
On the evidence & moments that matter most.
An unarmed teen in Florida was shot and killed today — he was black and the guy with the gun wasn’t
At that moment — that’s all I know. Race relations, gun control, stand-your-ground laws, black, white, whatever — none of that even enters my mind. It instantly enters yours — because you got into the habit of letting people put it there.
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.
— Attributed to Mark Twain
Over and over again, you play right into their hands: Predictably gutting the truth when going for gold in the Gutter Games of Government. I don’t have situational rules. I see things as they are — not as I imagine them to be. By design, America remains mired in the murky.
I fail to understand how you think we can solve anything in a country that can’t even get the self-evident straight:
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.
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
Touters of Thomas Sowell’s tenets have no such notion, but seemingly live to advertise themselves as arbiters of truth. Never mind they sling insults & assumptions first and never ask questions later. 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. 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.
One picture is worth a thousand words. Without passion or prejudice in the way, you would wonder what the image below is about (and fill in some of the words for yourself). You’d have questions “Who are you to criticize the great Thomas Sowell?” would not be one of ’em. The second you do that, you’re in gross breach of the standards he espouses.
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
He has more followers than you. Case dismissed.
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?
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:
“Compared to What?”
That principle is built into the props in that picture staring you straight in the face.
And since this issue involves 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.
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:
The blankness it must take to breeze on by all of the above keep right on worshipping Sowell like he’s some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes. And I’m just getting warmed up!
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.
There is no measure for how asinine these acolytes are in defending the indefensible — automatons devoid of rational thought & manners. Your behavior has not an atom of integrity, courtesy, curiosity, courage, decency:
Or any virtue of any kind
On evidence involving artillery rockets and material properties of centrifuge rotors — the apostles of Sowell smugly cite his books on economics, race, and whatnot: Anything to glorify him as they abandon any notion of accountability:
Butchering his bedrock beliefs as they dance in delight behind their force field of fallacy.
These people do nothing but question my motives, mock my site, and assault my character — then proudly post quotes of Sowell looking stately as he condemns the very thing they’re doing.
- Repeat slogans: “Everybody believed Iraq had WMD”
- Question people’s motives: Bush hater, Bush basher, Bush Derangement Syndrome, Plamegate & plenty more. Adding to the arsenal of childish crap to continue the tradition: Snowflake, Libtard, Libturd, Cupcake, TDS, Demon-crat, Democrat Party
- Bold assertions: Russians said so, British said so, Bill Clinton said so, Leaders of both parties said so . . .
No coherent argument, Repeat slogans, Vent their emotions, Question people’s motives, Bold assertions . . .
Just what would it take for you to do what you say you do?
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.
Sowell’s second article on the subject is a 2-minute read at 752 words — not one of which addresses the tubes that took us to war. And yet this mountain of information below was publicly available before he wrote that article:
How do you reconcile that?
I’m not out to “DESTROY” Sowell:
Quite the contrary! Stick around — you’ll see. That his supporters instantly sling assumptions about my motives (coupled with rapid-fire ridicule for satisfaction in full): Is in gross breach of the standards he espouses.
I imagine much of his opposition is out to bring him down (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.
While I’m not out to ruin your “National Treasure” — lemme put it in terms you’ll understand: If Sowell 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 . . .
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”
Back to that in a bit
Believing things that have no bearing on reality has become a plague across America — erosion of reason that took decades of denying the undeniable. I doubt even the most loyal LeBron fans would dispute his glaringly obvious history of flopping — but he does:
I play an aggressive game. I don’t flop. I’ve never been one of those guys
— LeBron James
There was a time when it would be embarrassing for a ball player to feign being fouled on the level of theatrics in King James’ court. You’d be laughed off the court for pulling stunts like that in my day. It’s all the more absurd when you consider that even with the hardest-hitting fouls back in the 80s — nobody flailed about like that on impact.
Never mind Lebron’s built like a Tiger tank.
Tiger Tanks Could Withstand a Dozen Sherman[s]
The only way that so many levels of sham and stupidity could be so easily accepted — is that it was normalized little by little over time.
Ain’t that America
His words are pure fantasy . . .
But it doesn’t matter, because that’s the country we’ve become — where words are empty and you can feign offense to avoid having to answer for anything. 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.
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
We could do something about that, but you’re busy . . .
You’re always busy
I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth.
My idea is simple: Cutting through our Crap is King culture to get you to see it— is not.
Where infantile insults are celebrated
The doubt-free who don’t do their homework are the experts. Those who belittle and outright reject correction — are the righteous and wise. The ones with courage to admit when they’re wrong — are the weak. Tireless dedication is mercilessly mocked — while intellectual laziness is esteemed.
Original thinking and uniqueness are bashed — while conforming to the trite is trumpeted. Depth is discarded with disdain — while shallowness is embraced with love.
The honest & sincere are shunned — while manipulators & liars are welcomed with open arms.
This is my story — and if you read it in full, you’ll find it’s part of your story too. You’ve all dealt with the same behavior I have — the difference is that I get it from every direction.
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
Until the rise of podcasts, twitter, and the various forms of independent media / journalism, people weren’t really aware how legacy media was influencing their thinking. I think people are finally waking up and may surprise you here, especially if more talk about it.
New formats for funneling information that caters to your cravings is not what I’d call enlightened. And those who couldn’t spot clearly dishonest actors before — think they’re wide awake now? The Twitter bio behind that quote begins with “Groupthink averse.”
It would never occur to him that everything in that Tweet is Groupthink 101.
That you don’t understand how you’re all being played is bad enough, but that you make it nearly impossible to explain it to you reflects how new media has hardened you even more than legacy did.
None of these boxes of beliefs are entirely wrong, but bonding within them makes you think you’re entirely right (on everything).
Anything Goes in these cesspools of certitude . . .
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:
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
This nation has no such notion
Glenn Loury once called my writing “brilliant” and was “honored” by it — as well as being “blown away” by my site and signed up. He partly inspired this site with his fine feedback on I Don’t Do Slogans on The Yellow Brick Road.
The value of inspiration is in how you act on it.
The Yellow Brick Road is the path of America’s pursuits.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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. Pay no mind how many times we go backwards by the means in which you move forward. Conventional methods have repeatedly failed and won’t put a pinprick in the atmosphere of absurdity suffocating the country.
But pounding away at problems with blunt instruments is all the rage.
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
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.
In talking about Titan, James Cameron perfectly captured the folly of a nation that never learns:
Here we are again. And at the same place. Now there’s one wreck lying next to the other wreck for the same damn reason.
A lot of that goin’ around
[T]here could be no country that makes less use of the accumulated experience of those who have served it – none that is more frivolously neglectful and improvident of these assets – than the United States of America.
— George F. Kennan, Around the Cragged Hill
Speaking of Titanic:
The signs were all there . . .
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 by definition — 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.
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 . . .
My scrutiny spares no side, so if you can’t handle some heat — you don’t qualify for the mindset I’m seeking.
As stated below, 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:
I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth. Believe it or not, the likes of Loury and Sowell are central to the success of what I have in mind. 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.
Instead of listening and learning — slinging snippets of certitude has become America’s pastime. We’ve created a knee-jerk nation where discernment is derided and negligence is in vogue. What was beyond the pale in the past is now perfectly acceptable. There was a time when adults acted their age. Those days are long gone — as the internet and the cable clans paved the way for the onslaught of the utterly absurd.
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.
Taking on the entire country by myself is worlds away from what everyone else is doing. In reference to its opening image on Without Passion or Prejudice, I wrote: “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.” When you make up your mind on lickety-split perception alone: In what parallel universe does that qualify as critical thinking?
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.
One Voice Became Two 