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?
Believing things that have no bearing on reality has become a plague across America — erosion of reason that took decades of denying the undeniable. Systematic oversimplification has taken over to the point where inconvenient correlations are condemned as convoluted.
And any attempt to have a conversation on issues that clearly call for careful consideration — is hijacked by baseless beliefs beaten into your brain as bedrock fact.
We could do something about that and much more — but you’re busy . . .
You’re always busy
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
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)
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.
As I said in my doc:
You can’t seem to comprehend that I don’t care what damage the truth inflicts upon politicians of any brand. I have this crazy idea that across-the-board accountability is always in the best interests of the nation.
As for my frustration — I have this thing about people who regurgitate nonsense in the face of overwhelming evidence that counters their baseless beliefs.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
Preach responsibility and take none
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!
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?
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
“Compared to what?”
You can’t have “compared to what” without comparing what’s in question. If evidence claimed as components for building a nuclear bomb isn’t worthy of consideration, what is?
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?
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 mathematical certainty, 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.”
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?
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’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
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.
Slinging assumptions and excuses (coupled with rapid-fire ridicule for satisfaction in full): Flies in the face of the standards he espouses. I’m practically spit on by people promoting principles I followed to find he didn’t.
Sowell’s a well-mannered guy on the whole and his fanatical followers act like act like animals to honor him — which is in gross breach of 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.
Funny thing about information: It can seem incoherent when you don’t take any of it into account. Would you browse a textbook then blame the teacher for your failure to understand the material? If you’re not gonna watch clips at the crux of the story, what’s the point? That the decline of America over the last 30 years in the Gutter Games of Government — doesn’t unfold for standard scrolling with ease, is not a flaw in my argument and array of illustrations:
It’s a flaw in your willingness to work through it — absorbing each building block of information your brain is well-equipped to handle.
Or at least it used to be before information became so funneled in a fashion to your liking — you don’t even know what to do with anything that isn’t. It astounds me that wading through unfamiliar territory on this site is somehow seen as complicated as quantum physics. I assure you: What it took to acquire this information was infinitely more demanding than anything you face here — let alone the complexities in exposing systematic deception at the core of our country’s ills.
What I do takes work — time and effort to think it through.
This — is entertainment
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 offered you overwhelming and irrefutable evidence in my documentary that exhaustively exposes the biggest and most costly lie in modern history — taking both parties to task for it. You refused to even glance at the doc while deriding my efforts with pleasure.
So with this site I tried another approach: Interweaving clips in conjunction with the behavior of those who slavishly defend the indefensible.
The doc is structured to the hilt in 7 segments averaging 24 minutes apiece — so it’s much easier to digest. But circular certitude is quite the convenient cop-out: Allowing you to blow off the doc, dish your derision on issues you’re wildly unqualified on — then complain how you can’t follow the format of a site that wouldn’t be needed if you simply watched the doc in the first place.
From the get-go
Almost every post points to an identifiable disconnect — enough to know that something’s not right with people you put on a pedestal. You could skip the post and go straight to the doc — and watch one at a time for 7 days, 7 weeks or 7 months. You could watch clips and ask questions — exploring in a piecemeal pursuit of the truth in whatever way works for you.
You do nothing of the kind. You skim my site and breeze on by clips at the crux of the story — as you’re not looking to learn, you’re looking to respond. And entire industries are engineering that need.
We get rewarded by hearts, likes, thumbs-up — and we conflate that with value, and we conflate it with truth.
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 . . .
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.
But we’re all here because we share some important things in common: a commitment to reason, curiosity, independence, decency, and a hunger for honest conversation. In our upside-down world, holding fast to these ideals can sometimes feel lonely. More than ever, we crave the company of people who share our core values.
— Bari Weiss
It’s a nice gesture for Bari to bond with her audience. But what people crave is the company of those who see themselves as they do — never mind their record doesn’t remotely reflect their claims. Following the facts going the direction you desire doesn’t count: Anybody can do that!
V for Victory — How Fitting . . .
A world where you can win an argument without even knowing what the issue is about.
Shallow thinkers do not think beyond the immediate and the observable. They usually take information at face value and only look at immediate consequences. They are not capable of looking at all sides of an issue or think deeply about the issue before making decisions or drawing conclusions . . .
They also believe that their opinion is based on deep thinking because they genuinely believe that their opinion is based on truth and facts. Whereas, deep thinkers look at the whole sequence of events and the consequences.
When we dig deeper, we understand better. We can compare different outcomes, examine, tear apart, and make cognizant judgments that are derived from different mental models.
Left and Right, I’ve yet to find a single person who digs beyond the depth of their immediate domain of interest. In our entirely transactional times, America endlessly rehashes topics of today — never once considering the totality of events that created them (or even having a notion of the need to).
With the issues I address — you might as well be saying the Civil War wasn’t germane to the assassination of Lincoln.
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.
[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. V for Victory captures my 15-part series 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.
For a preview on how I feel about woke . . .
For more on that . . .
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 . . . 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.”
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. Speaking of Loury — a man who once called my writing “brilliant” and was “honored by it” (as well as being “blown away” by my site and “signed up”).
“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.
Then there’s this . . .
First time I ever heard of John McWhorter was in a 2017 interview. In talking about take a wild guess, he said:
He has a rather narcotic joy in dismissal and belittlement
The likes of Loury & McWhorter miserably fail to see how they are conditioning people to behave exactly as McWhorter’s quote.
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 . . .
Nice work!
Sowell helped sell these lies 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.
Ripping on woke is all the rage
And outrage industries of dish it but can’t take it — would talk about race and responsibility till the end of time. But heaven forbid we have a single conversation about war and responsibility.
As a distinguished scholar once said: “The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.”
— Thomas Sowell
Simply by virtue of writing those words — he couldn’t possibly do the same in service of his own interests?
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
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.
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.
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
The cult-like following of this fraud is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something. His disciples see him as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes. Never mind he’s a professional know-it-all who fabricated a fantasyland of “following the facts where they lead.”
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?
Fact:
truth verifiable from experience or observation
If you have a history of hypocrisy and lying — you are a hypocrite and a liar. If you don’t like being called those things, don’t do those things. And right on cue: Calling criticism “mudslinging” is just somethin’ to say to escape scrutiny.
And the irony is, I’ve received almost nothing but mudslinging for decades — by people who cry foul with counterfeit claims on what they do for real. And let’s face it: You need it to be mudslinging, because if it’s not — your beliefs are gonna fall apart.
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?
I believe in applying the same rules to everyone . . .
Without acting on those beliefs — it’s just wishful thinking:
“It’s indefensible!
Don’t you know that?”
Chuck Lane: This wasn’t an isolated incident, Caitlin. He cooked a dozen of them, maybe more . . .
Caitlin Avey: No, the only one was Hack Heaven. He told me that himself
Chuck Lane: If he were a stranger to you, if he was a guy you were doing a piece about, pretend that guy told you he’d only did it once. Would you take his word for it? Of course not! You’d dig and you’d bury him! And you’d be offended if anybody told you not to.
In a sea of self-congratulations on another day of duty — this is height of what these people have to offer:
Love me some Sowell. Only read two books so far but the clarity and explanation of thought is something to aspire to. Conflict of visions and basic economics. Recommend for everyone.
For all these “geniuses” you love to laud — you sure aren’t learning much. Decorating your bio with beliefs does not equate to abiding by them:
We’ll see . . .
As I said, I’m not out to destroy Sowell, but 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.
One Voice Became Two 