I tend to believe Thomas Sowell. He is brilliant and has worked at a think tank for about 40 years. Sources matter! Yours is from a concerned citizen.
In the face of centrifuge physics — that is your argument?
Trillion Dollar Tube
Following Facts Where They Lead
“Said so and so”? . . . that’s one helluva trip you took there, Mr. Sowell.
Stirring Defense!
Are you telling me . . .
That I can grasp this — but you can’t grasp that?
Your pursuit of truth and accountability seems awfully one-sided, Mr. Sowell. And that’s a fact: “truth verifiable from experience or observation.” Just as my lifelong record of unwavering commitment to the truth and objective scrutiny to find it.
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
Anyone wanting to know the truth would not behave in ways that make damn sure you never will. Defenders of the indefensible make it impossible to discuss even a single image — and yet have the temerity to bitch about my website. You blow right by illustrations and clips at the crux of the story — then complain how you can’t understand what you didn’t stop to consider.
Anything Goes for apologists trying to preserve what they perceive. I know their Rolodex of Ridicule rabbit-hole routine — all too well:
And Now for the Weather . . .
About that concerned citizen:
In addition to interviewing a world-renowned nuclear scientist, I also corresponded with the key physicist who wrote extensively on the tubes that took us to war, along with corresponding with Colin Powell’s chief of intelligence at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR):
Powell’s very own intelligence agency that he conveniently ignored.
INR stuck to its old-fashioned ways by agreeing with DOE:
Ya know, the actual experts!
And about those think tanks . . .
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
And this one . . .
Associated Press, October 3rd, 2004: Rice said she learned of objections by the Energy Department only after making her 2002 comments.
Richard W. Memmer: Are we to believe that the National Security Advisor of the United States was unaware of an intelligence dispute of this magnitude that had been going on for well over a year?
One Congressional investigator went so far as to call it a holy war. And doesn’t it strike you as suspicious that she didn’t bother consulting the DOE before serving up images of a nuclear detonation?
— Act II
Holy War
Believe it or not, the best way to serve your interests is to first and foremost — hold your own accountable. If you want to make the opposition look bad, try looking good. If you want to have the moral high ground, try earning it:
The moral high ground, in ethical or political parlance, refers to the status of being respected for remaining moral, and adhering to and upholding a universally recognized standard of justice or goodness.
The story I’m out to tell takes both parties to task on the biggest and 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.
Wouldn’t it be something if an idea that threw you for a loop — piqued your curiosity to probe for more? But outside of those who inspired this post, I’ve faced a culture that “insist upon on ‘affirmation independent of all findings'” (borrowing from Peck who borrowed from Buber).
They make it impossible to have this conversation within a single frame — let alone the bigger picture!
After all — you’re busy! You’re always busy . . .
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
America is Unschooled in Adjustment
The rules have changed, as in — there are none! By failing to recognize that, you cannot adapt to deal with it. All of America is trying to plow through problems when you should be going around them (think asymmetrical “warfare”). Ray Liotta perfectly captured this concept in Copland:
You don’t drive down Broadway to get to Broadway. You move diagonal . . . you jag
Take note that my interest in you intelligently pursuing your interests has no bearing on whether I agree with them or not. I don’t even want to be part of the debate — I just want honest debate (and I have an idea on how to achieve exactly that). It’s as outside-the-box as it gets but rooted in timeless truths America made outdated.
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.
Conventional means have no chance of breaching the envelope of intransigence around armies of unreachables in the trench warfare of our times. But integrate those same tools into an unconventional framework for honest debate — and now you’ve got something. I’ve been in the trenches dealing with hermetically sealed minds in a way no other has:
Giving me unique insight into America’s decline from decades of dishonesty and systematic self-deception in the Gutter Games of Government.
The purveyors of virtue that follow are a sampling of those who are exacerbating that problem while under the impression they’re mitigating it. I believe that if they could see the damage they’re doing — they would re-evaluate their colossally counterproductive approach. And while you should not need an incentive to do what’s right and abide by your own standards:
The incentives are off the charts for the astute who can see the bigger picture.
Changing the dynamic of debate and demanding better from their audience — will undoubtedly drive some out. But that loss will be a drop in the bucket compared to what they’ll gain by broadening their audience and making measurable impact. As these communities are interconnected — once one of ’em raises the bar of debate and gains subscribers:
Along with worldwide attention for exposing lies on a level that changes the trajectory of America . . .
Others will follow suit!
Even in the face of overwhelming and irrefutable evidence, some of Sowell’s influential followers would forever deny the undeniable — but not all of ’em. And all I need is one! These lies live on because people protecting their interests contained the “conversation” by refusing to even have it. But get this story in the right hands and the jig is up. Once word get out: His fanatical followers will go out of their minds defending the indefensible — it’ll spread like wildfire.
And that’s just the beginning for what I have in mind.
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.
[T]he basic premise of Black Lives Matter — that racist cops are killing unarmed black people—is false. There was a time when I believed it. . . . . My opinion has slowly changed. . . .
Two things changed my mind: stories and data.
— Stories and Data: Reflections on race, riots, and police
“Stories and data”?
Or just stories and data that swiftly serve a market? Because this sure looks a lot like stories and data to me:
America lost its way long ago — and you’re right about how some of that happened. But all that pales in comparison to the aftermath of 9/11. Every major problem in America was exponentially exacerbated because of that fiasco for the ages.
Which Sowell helped sell and got off scot-free.
They all did — as they always do (Democrats & Republicans alike):
[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
It’s a sign of the times that even on matters of quantifiable fact — there are competing camps for rigging your own reality. We have The Math Club (with the latest in fashion being the Philosophical Fluff Faction): Who find meaning in “mathematical certainty” having no meaning:
As any proper scientist can explain to you, there is no such thing as irrefutable evidence OR mathematical certainty
Well, since I interviewed Dr. Houston Wood (among the world’s preeminent experts on uranium enrichment — a topic you have yet to even acknowledge): Perhaps we should discuss what he said.
Instead of “any proper scientist” as the arbiter of truth?
Something’s Not Right . . .
Start with those 3 little words of wonder and you’ll be amazed at the clarity that comes with it. But for those who want to feel right even in the face of what could not be more wrong — clarity is avoided like Black Death.
On a matter involving war in the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11 — the stakes don’t get much higher. For a Maverick who’s worshipped for following the facts — wouldn’t he take the trail to where they matter most?
As in the marquee claim used to manufacture this fraud?
I did — Sowell didn’t!
Without [the tubes], they had nothing
And nothing on the tubes (or anything else of substance on this endless saga of absurdity): Is what you’ll find in Thomas Sowell’s articles on Iraq WMD. His acolytes are so bothered by how much I have to say:
That nowhere in their minds does it dawn on them to wonder why he said so little.
Thielmann said the following in 2013:
It will be up to Iraqis to debate whether their country now has a brighter future than it otherwise would have had without foreign invasion and occupation in the first decade of the new century. But it is uniquely incumbent on Americans to understand who and what were responsible for an enterprise that proved so costly in terms of U.S. lives lost, money spent, international reputation tarnished, and a campaign against al Qaeda diverted.
America just casually moved on . . .
I didn’t — as I knew then what few know now:
The immeasurable value in the willingness to be wrong, understanding why, and looking to learn from it. And that not doing so — increasingly compounds the consequences of no accountability.
Look around!
It’s a mighty fine day when you wake up to high praise from a man of Glenn Loury’s caliber — twice! He once called my writing “brilliant,” was “honored by it,” and “blown away” by my site and signed up. Alas, he wasn’t too keen on the truth when I took his hero to task.
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
If you want to rebut an argument you disagree with, you have to understand it first.
— Glenn Loury
Coming from someone unwittingly cultivating a cesspool of sycophants who have nothing but contempt for truth that doesn’t instantly serve them, that’s RICH as it gets!
Not to mention this . . .
I KNOW . . .
That you know the answer to this question:
And I KNOW . . .
That someone seeking to “expand that aperture, to learn about the world from outside ourselves, learning more, knowing more” — and being open to change: Would consider that question and take the trail to the truth that follows from the answer.
This — is not the answer . . .
And nothing about that represents “expand that aperture” and all that jazz. But is precisely the possession described 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
Or as Einstein succinctly put it:
If only Loury had listened instead of clinging to possession — what wonders he could have worked with what I have in mind. And whatever he’s making on his book would be pennies on the dollar had he heard me out on my idea and ran with it:
As that story would set the stage for a book for the ages.
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
The solution to this problem is more truth, not less.
No, it’s not. You cannot forever beat something into the ground and think it’ll magically make a dent someday. And even if by some miracle it does, wouldn’t you want to know if you could have cut out years or even decades had you been smart about it? And what does it say to you that such impossibly simplistic thinking as “more truth, not less”:
Is canon across echo chambers that think they’re part of some revolution in reason — then outright reject it when called to account?
a.k.a.
Repeatedly rehashing issues is not the mark of problem solving: It’s the mark of a market. All these channels are blunt instruments (including those I agree with). Like Black Lives Matter, you’re just pounding away at problems without any examination of the efficacy of your efforts.
But why bother when failure is a pretty profitable enterprise these days?
On that note:
Building on his enormously successful first edition. Tom Nichols confirms his thesis and proves that the assault on expertise has only intensified.
So, outside of selling books and building a following, you didn’t succeed — at all. When a deservingly popular book didn’t make a dent in 7 years (and everything’s gotten worse to boot): I fail to understand the excitement for an expanded edition doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making a dent either.
Such questions don’t compute with this crowd or any other.
Congratulating yourselves for ordering a book and broadcasting it for Likes: It’s all so goddamn pointless (as there’s no purpose beyond pretending you’re part of some glorious pursuit of the truth and what’s right). Never mind you all refuse to listen to any expertise that challenges you — which flies in the face of the whole f#@king point!
Your followers are so passionate about expertise — that they blow off the person who was years ahead of you in explaining this problem (and in far more sophisticated ways):
Not to mention offering real-world ideas on what to do about it.
The same person telling you that new edition has exactly zero chance of doing of any better than the first (in actually accomplishing anything). And when that prediction comes true: All your audience will care about is congratulating you when you come along advertising the 3rd edition:
Waiting in line for the signed copy they crave!
Unbelievable!
I’m sure it’s intoxicating to amass a following and feel like you’re making a difference. But I’m going to weigh their impact partly as a reflection of their community: How people behave, not what they believe. If you can’t get that right, I don’t care how big your following gets — you’re taking this nation nowhere. What’s more, you’re making matters worse and being rewarded for it. I’m going to show you how to fix the problem you don’t even know you have.
Indeed, nowadays, we tend to take in and repeat whatever the values and beliefs of those around us have rather than forming our own independent thought and stopping to organize and evaluate the information we are receiving.
— Ann Baker, Critical Thinking: A fading skill in the age of information overload
Perfectly put — except for the “fading” part.
In our Age of Unenlightenment — “fading” is an understatement for the ages. And Loury’s Tweets below and above embody America’s echo chambers that operate entirely on narrative, not principle. But they believe it’s principle for precisely the reason Baker beautifully captured above (to the point where people seem to believe that advertising virtue equates to embodying it).
It would be nice if we lived in a world where facts determined our shared view of reality.
It would be nice if you and your crowd would do what you say you do. Simply replying, “Know your opponent’s argument as well as you own” (then flagrantly failing to do anything of the kind when your interests are on the line) — doesn’t count!
Does the behavior below strike you as people seeking to understand an argument?
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
A lot of that goin’ around!
And the likes of Loury & McWhorter are fueling that frenzy:
Producing a toxicity of venom I hope they’d find sickening if they realized what they were doing. I’m not suggesting they stop — I’m suggesting they reframe the debate by broadening it. It’s the kind of thing that takes “stopping to organize and evaluate the information we are receiving” to understand. The kind of thing that people looking to “expand that aperture” would welcome with open arms.
But in seeking to help others find their way, the likes of Loury & McWhorter have lost theirs: Blinded by adulation and rewards aplenty (thinking their ever-increasing popularity reflects some measure of impact).
They are dead wrong (along with all of America making this same mistake every single day):
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. Just picking the “root cause” that works for you doesn’t cut it.
You’ve gotta look at interconnected causes across-the-board — and that takes work!
And I assure you . . .
What I have in mind is a helluva lot more fruitful and fulfilling than this hero-worship horseshit:
Festinger would have a field day with the cult-like following of this professional know-it-all. On top of flagrantly ignored irrefutable evidence of mathematical certainty (opting to peddle partisan hackery that poisons political discourse to this day): He has a patently obvious history of toeing the party line.
All of which flies in the face of the principles upon which he’s put on a pedestal.
I cannot believe that Loury, McWhorter, and Hughes (or even Sowell himself) — would approve of their followers’ blind loyalty and belligerence. He’s a well-manned guy and his disciples act like animals to honor him.
But believe it not — he’s the one person who could turn it all around in a way no other could. 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!
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!
A student wrote of her psychology professor: “Tim Wilson taught me the importance of breaking problems down into more manageable pieces.” At the bedrock of my idea is exactly that. The 11th edition of Social Psychology has the domino effect on the cover.
They’ve got an image of an idea — I’ve got the idea. Their field is forever fighting the forces of human nature whereas my solution banks on it.
Speaking of Dr. Aronson (co-author of the book above):
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. And he 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
Seems like that should count for something.
But how to connect with the one who could kick-start it all? As they’re drowning in popularity and praise, I can’t get to these people directly. Unless someone comes along with a connection — I gotta get to them indirectly (like through the organization below — which Loury, McWhorter, and Hughes used to belong to on the advisory board).
Cognitive dissonance doesn’t care that you signed a pledge:
Neither did Loury — and neither did you:
So much for diplomacy . . .
I FedExed them a short snail-mail letter long before I was blocked — and they blew it off (as I predicted). Perhaps someone else can reach them in ways I couldn’t. And if not that place, then through another. There’s gotta be somebody out there with credentials and the guts to take a look at what’s going on here and what an opportunity it is:
To start solving some problems instead of forever talking about them.
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion . . . draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects or despises . . . in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.
— Francis Bacon, Novum Organum Scientiarum, 1650
Long before brain imaging to understand human behavior, we already had all the tools we needed for a hopeful humanity. We didn’t take advantage of the gifts were were given, and what a shocker — we don’t make good use of those fancy new insights either. Instead of endlessly analyzing irrational behavior, why not leverage your understanding of it to solve some problems — and then study that?
Which is why any department around psychology at the university level would work (Brown and Columbia would be ideal since Loury and McWhorter teach there). This would make for one helluva dissertation as well — so a fiercely independent PhD student hungry to make their mark would be plenty credentialed to get this off the ground.
Coleman is a good candidate for someone who might be willing to open his eyes on Sowell. Hughes has he’s willing to change his mind, and he’s young enough not to have Sowell baked into his entire being. But anyone of influence across these interconnected communities will do. I’m not sure on McWhorter — as it’s hard to say after Loury’s knee-jerk reaction.
But what I am certain of is that these people care about their reputations.
If anyone in their circle penetrates the force field of fallacy around Sowell — it’s over! It won’t be about protecting him anymore — it’ll be about protecting themselves. But if they’re as smart as they think they are: They’ll see that the truth would ultimately serve their purpose and Sowell’s.
As for what I ultimately have in mind: It’s 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. 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
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
