“Enslaved People”
It’s not the change in terms that bothers me so much: It’s the complete absence of intellectually honest discussion by people preoccupied with victories in vocabulary.
When I am making my edits, “John’s slave” becomes “a person enslaved by John.” “John owned Sally” becomes “John enslaved Sally.” . . .
Good grief!
Even if there is a distinction deserving of discussion:
What you fail to understand is that the net effect of your efforts is what counts (not your well-meaning intent). If you do far more harm than good — what’s the point?
Consider this sentence: “George Washington owned slaves at Mount Vernon.” It doesn’t agitate our sense of morality as much as the sentence “George Washington enslaved people at Mount Vernon,” does it? To most people, it seems much worse to say, read, or hear that someone “enslaved” other people than that they “owned” other people.
That’s partially because ownership is one of the primary rights and most cherished ideas in the American system — and most Western systems — of government.
I’m not among “most” . . .
And on what basis is she making the claim that “most people” see it that way? “Owned” has an ugliness that “enslaved” does not — precisely because we know it’s not a “primary right” to own people. Such efforts are really reaching to re-engineer what cannot be undone.
All this over-the-top engineering of sensitivity has gotten totally out of hand. Excessive sensitivity breeds hypersensitivity. When you water things down to be politically correct, our nation’s ability to discern decreases right along with it: Creating a culture that’s increasingly more easily offended and radically irrational — across-the-board.
Jesus — it just never ends . . .
Tough love used to be timeless:
Now everything’s an assault on increasingly fragile egos. And so typical of the times — nothing has meaning anymore (which was predictable when you water everything down to the point where its original intent is conveniently forgotten). The ability to take criticism (harsh or otherwise) — is at the core of what this nation so desperately needs:
While you’re killing us by being needy.
And don’t even get me started on how homelessness is a problem perpetuated by those most sensitive in their approach to solving it. If you wanna start solving problems instead of perpetuating them — it’s gotta get ugly (or as ol’ Bill perfectly put it):
But why rely on time-honored truths that work when when it’s so much easier to feel comforted by newfangled ways that don’t? Never mind the cosmic damage they leave in their wake:
In our culture of instant offense, we ban before we think. However, banning isn’t a sign of strength or resolve, but an admission of defeat, of showing how little we have engaged with whatever the bigger issue that belies the ban.
Instead of asking or addressing the roots of violent racism in the South in 2015 — far too difficult, far too intimidating — we focus on symbols. If we take a flag down, if we remove a TV show from the schedules, it shows we are doing something.
It shows our hearts are in the right places.
Renaming teams and pancake products, kneeling, knocking down monuments, wiping Indians off boxes of butter, banning Dukes of Hazzard, and Microsoft’s Inclusiveness Checker to program you proper:
Enough already!
These are not serious-minded measures for problem solving.
Elaine’s exasperation x 10 =
How impossibly stupid it is that they banned The Dukes of Hazzard
But the high five is just so stupid!
From as far back as I can remember, I loved the Land O’Lakes Indian. And then they butchered the spirit of it for the sake of sensitivity. If such measures had any chance of actually making an impact that matters — I’d gladly sacrifice my precious brand of beauty.
For those who would try to educate me by saying I don’t understand the feelings involved in empty overtures that accomplish absolutely nothing:
No, you don’t understand . . .
Marching to Black Lives Matter with the first black president sitting in the White House — was that a smart move? The answer should be abundantly clear and yet the question is not even considered. I’ve been blocked on Twitter for just politely suggesting that BLM is a counterproductive cause.
Instead of considering how you could fight for justice more intelligently — you act like I’m saying you shouldn’t fight for it at all.
Was that a smart move?
Instantly firing back with boilerplate beliefs is not an indicator of understanding the premise of that question (or even caring to). Such inquiry requires reflection and the willingness to examine the efficacy of your efforts: And what role you play in harming your own interests by the manner in which you pursue them.
What’s more, you make it nearly impossible to explain it to you — as detail has a way of complicating the narrative. Even if drawing attention to a problem produces some positive activity, the concept of unintended consequences entirely escapes those consumed by what they see only in the moment.
Not to mention this . . .
On that note:
The people who consider themselves to be the saviors of black people — are hurting black people, because what they’re committed to is more virtue signaling than actually doing something in the world.
— John McWhorter
No rational person would deny that, but I assure you — the likes of Loury & McWhorter will turn on a dime to deny the undeniable to protect their own (just like those they’re trying to change). Hypocrisy does not lend itself to compelling argument (as it poisons everything in its path). Believe it or not, the best way to serve your interests is to first and foremost — hold your own accountable. If you wanna make the opposition look bad, try looking good.
If you wanna 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.
That is not this . . .
We should be above whatever the fad or the fashion is of any given day. We should be looking at the deep questions. We should be analytical. We should be emphasizing reason.
— Glenn Loury, Tucker Carlson Today
Only for problems that are popular and easy to perceive? Whatever’s in your wheelhouse? Is that as deep as your questions go, Glenn? The likes of Loury & McWhorter (and all of America) — want to have conversations that work for them (as if issues exist in a vacuum).
And where’s all that “emphasizing reason” right here?
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-81 mm artillery rocket (a reverse-engineered version of the Italian Medusa)
Like the Left . . .
The Right has gone out of its mind, but they’re not always wrong (far from it). The Right is right on the money on the impossibly stupid pampering of woke:
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:
Incredibly, you look at that . . .
Coupled with this:
And act like it’s this . . .
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.
Pay no mind to how many times we go backwards by the means in which you move forward.
By Design
America Remains Mired in the Murky
What does it say to you: That on evidence claimed as components to build a nuclear bomb — the “debate” was hijacked by 10-second sound bites? Shouldn’t any debate establish what the debate is actually about? What does it say about a country that can’t even establish that much on a matter of this magnitude?
As I said in my doc:
All the sarin gas shells in the world would have no bearing on the aluminum tubes and other intel, but loyalists to logical fallacies are not burdened by the inconvenience of FACT.
They will nitpick over pebbles while refusing to even glance at the mountain of evidence that crushes their “convictions.”
— Richard W. Memmer: Act V
For the sake of argument: Let’s say Saddam had full-blown active WMD programs on chemical & biological weapons. The tubes would still be a lie — whether the war would have been justified in that scenario or not. I’ll go one further: Let’s say he had a uranium enrichment program in operation as well, but that the rotors were carbon fiber — not aluminum.
Once again, the tubes would still be a lie.
Getting lucky in finding something you didn’t know about — does not absolve you from a case that was woven out of whole cloth.
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:
“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.”
— The Dust Bowl
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. Taking on the entire country by myself is worlds away from what everyone else is doing. Explaining America’s decline from decades of dishonesty and systematic self-delusion in the Gutter Games of Government: Is apples & oranges as it gets when compared to the transactional nature of news and social-media norms.
Understanding how seemingly unrelated events impact one another takes time and effort to digest.
You are being conditioned to do the exact opposite. All’s fair in The March of Folly and fraud on the The Yellow Brick Road — the path of America’s predictably counterproductive pursuits.
Where 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.
From decades of being increasingly accommodating of liars aligned with your interests: You kept lowering the bar — and now there is no bar.
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.
Loury was rightly talking about the Black Lives Matter manifesto driving the aftermath of George Floyd. But the Left’s ludicrous ways pale in comparison to conservatives going batshit crazy after 9/11. The Right delights in ridiculing the Left for burning buildings to further the cause:
Yet the “party of personal responsibility” set the world ablaze while browbeating anybody out of line in their March of Folly.
True folly, Tuchman found, is generally recognized as counterproductive in its own time, and not merely in hindsight. In Tuchman’s template, true folly only ensues when a clear alternative path of action was available and ruled out.
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.
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:
Tuchman alighted on a root cause of folly that she called “wooden-headedness” — defined in part as “assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting contrary information.”
The outcome of that folly fashioned a culture of no consequences:
And predictably — more folly . . .
She also saw wooden-headedness as a certain proclivity for “acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by facts.”
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?
A Conflict of Visions
And then some!
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!
Wooden-headedness, said Tuchman, was finally — “the refusal to benefit from experience.”
— Russ Hoyle
The Refusal to Benefit from Experience
That you have not developed the capacity understand matters of complexity beyond your current comprehension — doesn’t mean they don’t make sense. And there is no measure for how preposterous it is that people who can’t even get the self-evident straight: Have the bottomless gall to belittle me on making correlations in 3 dimensions while you wallow in one.
A world where regurgitating garbage gets people to Like you — celebrating “victory” by clicking “bravo” to bad manners and bunk. A world where the rush is everything:
- The rush to respond
- The rush you get from responding
- The rush to roll out the next issue of concern
- Repeat and never reflect
Welcome to Your World:
V for Victory & Venom for Values
In this fantasyland where wishful thinking rules: You can win an argument without even knowing what the issue is about. What you do in denying the undeniable daily would be unthinkable for me to do ever.
“WUT”
In my youth, I could not have imagined a world in which even people with PhDs would act like imbeciles in the face of information they don’t instantly understand. That an entire country could take satisfaction in insulting your own intelligence on a daily basis just astounds me.
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.
V for Victory is 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. To concisely capture the absurdity that’s canon across these echo chambers: Imagine a club for international travel made up entirely of people without a passport.
Day after day, they talk about their love of going somewhere — with no interest in anyone who’s been somewhere.
It’s a world where you can blow right by this question below and call yourself a “critical thinker.” After all — it says so in your bio (bolstered by daily broadcasting of beliefs) : Reinforced by friends cemented in the same standards (that you instantly abandon the second they don’t serve you).
a.k.a.
The imagery above is all you need to answer that question, and the more you look — the worse it gets (and not just on Sowell). 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.
Wouldn’t it be something if an idea that threw you for a loop — piqued your curiosity to probe for more? But I’m mostly met with a culture that “insist upon on ‘affirmation independent of all findings’” (borrowing from Peck who borrowed from Buber).
You 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 . . .
America’s in perennial pursuit of ideologies: Warfare waged with galactic levels of baggage & bullshit bolstered by
opinions lightly adopted but firmly held . . . forged from a combination of ignorance, dishonesty, and fashion
— Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom
Case in Point . . .
