I wish a buck was still silver
It was back when the country was strong
I wish a lot of things — and with certainty I can say we’ll be in sync on some of ’em. My generation got off easy, as all we were called to do was weigh information. But even that was too much of a burden. As we got more, we became less. Merle’s sorrowful song has an uplifting twist at the end, and without that final 45 seconds — you’d miss the meaning of the message. The underlying meaning in mine:
Your beliefs should be backed by your record. I’m old-fashioned that way.
That there’s something more to see is what this site is all about.
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
In John Wayne: The Life and Legend, the author relays a story about The Duke growing up as Marion Robert Morrison — and how every day he rode eight miles to elementary school on a horse named Jenny. No matter how much he fed his horse, Jenny was still too thin.
Some ladies in town took notice of what they perceived as malnutrition and reported his family to the Humane Society. After a vet examined the horse it was diagnosed to have a disease and eventually they had to put her down. On top of losing his beloved horse, Marion was understandably unhappy with how he was treated:
[A] sense of outrage over being falsely accused never left him. “I learned you can’t always judge a person or a situation by the way it appears on the surface,” he remembered.
“You have to look deeply into things before you’re in a position to make a proper decision.”
In Duke: We’re Glad We Knew You — the following forward can be found (a 1979 article which includes the excerpt below):
To him a handshake was a binding contract. When he was in the hospital for the last time and sold his yacht, The Wild Goose, for an amount far below its market value, he learned the engines needed minor repairs. He ordered those engines overhauled at a cost to him of $40,000 because he had told the new owner the boat was in good shape.
This 60-second scene from The Searchers squares with the quote above, and it’s at the bedrock of my beliefs (along with a lifelong record to back them):
“I Told Ya, Didn’t I!”
This nation has no such notion . . .
But you sure Like to think you do:
One voice began to echo through the night. One voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune — but sung with great enthusiasm.
One voice became two — and two became three.
— Admiral McRaven
Various versions of that video have racked up over 70 million views. Since my other site was named after the turning point in his SEAL-training story, obviously I’m a fan. What I’m not a fan of is celebrating beliefs then abandoning them the instant they become inconvenient: Particularly when the whole point is about rising to the occasion.
While I appreciate the uplifting speech and inspiration it provided, I have something else in mind:
In reference to its opening image on Without Passion or Prejudice, I wrote: “Half the country is with me on this — and I just lost the other half. Had I started with the image below — it would be the opposite half.” When you make up your mind on lickety-split perception alone:
In what parallel universe does that qualify as critical thinking?
What does it say to you that across communities where claims of critical thinking are everywhere — I haven’t found it anywhere? It’s become a pastime for people to take endless delight in advertising their immaculate critical thinking skills. But the second they’re challenged on anything that is even perceived as threatening their interests — don’t do anything in the critical thinking illustration above or what’s bolded below:
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. But in a world that operates entirely on narrative, not principle: Simply the act of sharing beliefs has become equated to acting on them. In this fantasyland, applying principles somewhere magically means you apply them everywhere.
Hiding behind your force field of fallacy among friends: 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
The image below embodies what this is all about: It’s just an image — just as claims of critical thinking are empty without consistent commitment to skills that should be forever sharpened.
Especially in the face of information that challenges you!
And anyone who tries to reveal the reality underneath — isn’t part of the team. You’d recognize what’s going on here plain as day because it’s not personal. But in the face of all that follows, anyone paying attention would come to know that in the end — they’re all the same story. And at the center of ’em all is one person trying to solve a problem up against people protecting their interests (to the detriment of them).
This image and all the others cannot survive scrutiny (and blindly protecting those beliefs does cosmic damage to the very things you’re defending). That would become abundantly clear to any objective observer.
Just one problem: I can’t find any!
Not to mention I’m not part of the team and never have been: As I’ve always clashed with a culture that increasingly values bullshit as currency. In a world where rigging your own reality has become normalized: You can decorate your walls and website with lofty language (complete with how you care about “Candidate Feedback”):
And not care one bit about what someone who worked there has to say:
Bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant.
— Blurb to On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt
A lot of that goin’ around!
Speaking of Responsibility:
As M. Scott Peck perfectly put it in The Road Less Traveled: “[W]e must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it.” In a nation that incessantly blames and complains (seemingly for sport) — no one’s taking responsibility for anything.
It was as if they had looked at all the possibilities Rock had to offer, and built their music out of only the best parts . . . Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers made music like the last of the true believers. They gave back to their audience what they took from Rock & Roll themselves . . . the best of everything.
Sounds like a good way to build a company and a country — but that’s me.
The best of everything: Imagine! Yeah, yeah, yeah — I know it would never be like “the best” above or even close. But come on! We could at least do something in that spirit, couldn’t we? I can see that each side makes more sense on some things:
Why can’t you?
Retired Navy SEAL, Lt. Cmdr. Rorke Denver — wrote the following in 10 Years After Iraq War Began We Are Better Warriors:
Wherever you stand on Iraq and Afghanistan, this much is undeniable: All that intense and prolonged combat experience has made us far better warriors than we’ve ever been before. A decade after American troops stormed into Baghdad, the U.S. military is a battle-tested, forward-thinking, phenomenally sharp fighting force, truly ready for whatever threats come our way next.
They’re sharper — this nation, is not!
I’ve always hated Twitter and every long-form version of it (Reddit, Substack, and anything and everything claiming to be something it’s not). 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! Conventional methods have repeatedly failed and won’t put a pinprick in the atmosphere of absurdity suffocating the country. But integrate those same tools into an unconventional framework for honest debate — and now you’ve got something.
What I have in mind will work but won’t sell (nor do I need it to).
My idea is as outside-the-box as it gets (but rooted in timeless truths America made outdated). 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
A student wrote of her psychology professor: “Tim Wilson taught me the importance of breaking problems down into more manageable pieces.” And lo and behold, 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! Mankind is forever fighting the forces of human nature whereas my solution banks on it.
Just how many editions will it take before you figure out what I’ve been telling your field for 10 years?
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.
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.
Ah, the pooh-poohers of possibility: Forever on the front lines of lowering the bar while I’m trying to raise it — you’ve been a constant companion almost all my life.
Where would I be without you?
Remember that guitar in a museum in Tennessee
And the nameplate on the glass brought back twenty melodies
And the scratches on the face
Told of all the times he fell
Singin’ every story he could tell . . .
This sells — but will never work:
And the scratches on the face
Told of all the times he fell
Singin’ every story he could tell . . .
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.
Tom didn’t take kindly to me challenging him with my expertise:
A ton of that goin’ around:
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleepingAnd the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains . . .
Within the sound of silence . . .
In restless dreams, I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a streetlamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know”
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
“And the sign said”
“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls”
“In tenement halls”
And whispered in the sounds of silence
Islands of Idolatry
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
Dittohead Nation:
In their collective state, the Borg are utterly without mercy; driven by one will alone: the will to conquer. They are beyond redemption, beyond reason.
— Jean-Luc Picard
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.
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.
Speaking of cancer:
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 (of world-altering consequence, no less) — 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:
Inspiring his Followers
To follow suit by serving Sowell is the Grand Marshal of this lockstep lovefest — and the Admiral of the Scot-Free fleet:
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.
Lara walked along the tracks following a path worn by pilgrims and then turned into the fields. Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower-scented air of the broad expanse around her. It was dearer to her than her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book. For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life.
She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name, or, if this were not within her power, to give birth out of love for life to successors who would do it in her place.
― Doctor Zhivago (referenced in Into the Wild)
In the spirit of discovery that clarity, curiosity, and courage can inspire:
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):
If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything — and you do it by holding one man to his own standards.
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.
Left & Right
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.
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!
- A delusion is a mistaken belief that is held with strong conviction even when presented with superior evidence to the contrary
- Characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument
- Something a person believes and wants to be true, when it is actually not true
Enough Already!
OR . . .
We can keep doing it your way:
“Just get up off the ground, that’s all I ask!”
Get up there with that lady that’s up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won’t just see scenery; you’ll see the whole parade of what Man’s carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting.
“Get up off the ground”
And we can get to work . . .
I wonder . . .
How many remember what it was like to be uplifted by the genuine spirit of America? Maybe it wasn’t as real as I imagined it to be, but that authenticity is worlds away from where we are now.
Your move . . .
Thank you for reading!
When you open your eyes to what’s underneath — it intrinsically trains your mind to see with increasing clarity.
