The story I’m out to tell takes both parties to task on the biggest & most costly lie in modern history — along with some other issues at the core of America’s decline. Sowell is simply a conduit through which to tell that story (and how his role within it could be harnessed for good).
Compelling him to admit where he’s wrong will work wonders for where he’s right.
And you’ll find no shortage of where we’re in sync on some things:
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. I fail to understand how you think we can solve anything in a country that can’t even get the self-evident straight:
Debunking the WMD delusion & Trayvon tale is a conduit for showing how this nation systematically derails debate.
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.
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.
And lo and behold, guess who helped:
As I said in my doc:
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.’ . . . Out of 31 tubes in subsequent testing, only one was successfully spun to 90,000 RPM for 65 minutes — which the C.I.A. seized on as evidence in their favor. One D.O.E. analyst offered a superb analogy of that contorted conclusion:
“Running your car up to 6,500 RPM briefly does not prove that you can run your car at 6,500 RPM cross country. It just doesn’t. Your car’s not going to make it.”
In an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter, these guys were playing horseshoes with centrifuge physics.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
Who are “these guys”? Who are the “most experts” Powell was referring to in his UN speech? If you’re so dead certain on this subject, shouldn’t you have some idea about what’s going on here?
The Russians said so.
The British said so.
Bill Clinton said so.
Leaders of both political parties said so.— Thomas Sowell
“The British said so”?
What Bill Clinton said is entirely irrelevant to the tubes. So there’s that — and this: The Right ripped Bill Clinton to shreds and seemingly lives to assail democrats — and yet Sowell cites their word as solid gold.
That — is a magician’s maneuver:
Well, if they “said so” — it must be true.
So when people you despise ostensibly agree with you — it’s gotta be true, because they’d never do such a thing if it weren’t.
That’s it? . . .
Who cares about mathematical certainty in centrifuge physics when you’ve got the word of people who lie for a living? It couldn’t possibly be that your enemy has ulterior motives themselves? Nobody nails Democrats better than Glenn Greenwald’s gold-standard from a 2008 article on Salon.com:
Here we have a perfect expression of the most self-destructive Democratic disease which they seem unable to cure. More than anything — they fear looking weak. To avoid this, they cave, surrender, capitulate — and stand for nothing.
Flagrantly failing to account for motive in Sowell’s “said so and so” in the environment below — is as insulting to your intelligence as it gets. Never mind it’s all meaningless in the context of the tubes.
George W. Bush was one of the last to say so. Yet he alone is accused of lying.
— Thomas Sowell
I don’t play those games, Mr. Sowell:
They all lied
Some circles call that evidence — I call it cowardice
And don’t you find it suspicious that someone of Sowell’s caliber is gonna come right out of the gate with something so weak as:
What are the known facts about Saddam Hussein’s chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons? We know that, at one time or other, he was either developing or producing or using such weapons.
Immediately followed by:
“Back in 1981″
Take note of the trite & trendy language that follows: Strikingly in sync with Sowell’s, don’t ya think?
CIA is not the all knowing God of the Bible. The CIA could do everything 100% correct but still not know everything.
There’s another reason why they wouldn’t know everything: Nuclear scientists don’t work there — they work at the Department of Energy: And that — is what this is all about.
You’d know that had you watched Trillion Dollar Tube instead of trying to educate me on things you know nothing about.
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.
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.
Back to Sowell in a bit
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. I have no desire to believe I’m right about anything in which I am not.
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.
This nation has no such notion.
The bit below is an excerpt from a post I wrote called I Don’t Do Slogans on The Yellow Brick Road — a piece Glenn Loury called “brilliant.” He was “honored” by it and “blown away” by this site and signed up. Back to Loury later and how he fits into the story.
I don’t do slogans, so to me, “Black Lives Matter” is just as empty as its comeback cousin. Blunt instruments for change are just too ham-handed for my taste. Rather than endlessly debate catch phrases, monuments, and movements — I’m far more interested in considering the underlying merit in a point of view.
While everyone else spins their wheels on who’s right, I define what I see by factoring for what’s true (isolating and correlating along the way). 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.
When protecting your interests, most of America’s into the newfangled ways of “argument” — where you furiously fire off some fashionable form of “You’re wrong!” and dish it all day long: Insisting on “affirmation independent of all findings” (borrowing from Peck who borrowed from Buber).
I never got on board.
You’re wrong — and here’s why
That’s the discipline — to have a work ethic in the way you think. Without “here’s why,” you’re just whistlin’ Dixie. But just slinging anything you like doesn’t count — you have to specifically address the issue in question (on the evidence and moments that matter most). For instance:
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
In other words:
What I think of these people running around with rifles exemplifies that point (and is central to this entire site): That I can strip away anything extraneous to see a situation for exactly what it is.
And to be perfectly honest — that kid showed more restraint than I would have.
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. To believe that Rittenhouse wasn’t acting in self-defense is about serving your cause, not the truth. But when going for gold in the Gutter Games of Government, both sides pull the same stunts with stupefying psychological gymnastics.
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? 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.
The unquenchable thirst to think you’re right about everything under the sun is what has become of America. You see it yourselves — but never in yourselves. And that’s what this story is ultimately all about: How far people will go to protect their interests and cement how they see themselves. Never mind the damage they do in the pursuit — even to those interests they so desperately defend.
Probably the most powerful of these group cohesive forces is narcissism. In its simplest and most benign form, this is manifested in group pride. As the members feel proud of their group, so the group feels proud of itself. A less benign but practically universal form of group narcissism is what might be called “enemy creation,” or hatred of the “out-group.” We can see this naturally occurring in children as they first learn to develop groups.
It is almost common knowledge that the best way to cement group cohesiveness is to ferment the group’s hatred of an external enemy. Deficiencies within the group can be easily and painlessly overlooked by focusing attention on the deficiencies or sins of the out-group.
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
Anything Goes for apologists trying to preserve what they perceive. I know your Rolodex of Ridicule rabbit-hole routine — all too well:
And Now for the Weather
A Conflict of Visions
And then some . . .
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
At what point does it dawn on you and your beloved genius — that blind loyalty to that cause would be colossally counterproductive to your others? I’m not brilliant and I figured that out all by myself. 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.
Nice work! . . .
Sowell’s put on a pedestal for calling out problems he helped create.
A lot of that goin’ around
To see the character of the government and the country so sported with, exposed to so indelible a blot, puts my heart to the torture. . . . Or what is it that thus torments me at a circumstance so calmly viewed by almost everybody else? Am I a fool, a romantic Quixote, or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind?
Were it not for yourself and a few others, I . . . would say . . . there is something in our climate which belittles every animal, human or brute. . . . I disclose to you without reserve the state of my mind. It is discontented and gloomy in the extreme. I consider the cause of good government as having been put to an issue and the verdict against it.
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! 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
As the problems that plague America are interrelated, there was no point in just doing another doc on WMD alone (no matter how exhaustively detailed).
I needed a way to illustrate irrational behavior without showing any favoritism — and the aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict was just the ticket.
3 minutes and 33 seconds into the Prologue — the parallel in the Profile Principle is revealed (an exemplary example of applying the same rules to both sides). But rather spend even a few minutes digesting the words of someone with an impeccable track record for truth, you gotta get back to broadcasting beliefs you just abandoned.
3 minutes and 33 seconds . . .
Ahhh . . .now I see where he’s going with this
Imagine!
There are powerful forces that make damn sure you don’t — and shows!
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.
A.K.A. Learning
It’s as outside-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.
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. Even the best of the bunch are part of the problem they’re trying to solve.
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.
My idea is simple
Cutting through our Crap is King culture to get you to see it — is not.
But believe it or not, Thomas Sowell could turn the tide in a way no other could. 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.
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.
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 how emotion runs roughshod over reason. 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?
Look around!
One Tweet is all it should take:
He & his followers preach
Follow the facts . . .
Well there they are right at your fingertips.
do what you say you do
And you can make him a National Treasure for real (not just in your mind from the image he manufactured for you). A series of short pieces will follow to illustrate the force field of fallacy that shields Sowell from scrutiny:
And why this is such a immense opportunity.
I love you so much that I can’t leave you
Even though my mind tells me I should
But then you make me think that you still love me
And all my thoughts of leaving do no good . . .
You’ve got me heart over mind worried all the time
Knowing you will always be the same
You’ll keep hurting me I know but I still can’t let you go
Cause my heart won’t let my love for you change
It astounds me that even sharing something in hopes of a human connection — that maybe having something in common could connect in a way that undeniable evidence doesn’t: Even that is mocked — and conveniently taken as “weakness” in argument.
So in the face of centrifuge physics:
Belittling my “disjointed” & “juvenile” website with “irrelevant music & movies” is the best ya got?
Part 3 to come
One Voice Became Two 