Second Amendment Sanctuary Cities for the Win Either the progressive reformation or the civil war starts in Virginia. Are you listening Gov. Blackface McJolson? Lawfare: admitting you were wrong "The Horowitz Report dealt a blow to Lawfare: …[T]he ‘Lawfare’ blog…[is] a site that’s placed itself at the center of the operation to legitimize and push Trump-Russia conspiracy theories throughout the Trump presidency. Their specialty has been to claim the Steele dossier is “mostly verified” and asserting it as a credible source of allegations… To put it lightly, the recent IG report has not been kind to the Lawfare blog. People like Benjamin Wittes, who spent years trashing Devin Nunes’ correct memo, are left flailing about, desperately looking for a way to save face. You can read one of Wittes’ statements here. It’s a good example of the genre of the very incomplete mea culpa – you might say it’s a mea minima culpa (forgive my unschooled Latin). It contains an admission of error along with fresh attacks on Nunes and tactical twistings of what Horowitz actually said, as the writer at Red State explains. But this post isn’t really about Wittes himself. It’s about the entire phenomenon of being not just wrong but extremely and publicly wrong, and how a person deals with it. Admitting wrongdoing, even to the small extent that Wittes has done, is actually more than a great many people do. Maybe even more than most people do. But for many (most?) people, this small admission doesn’t usually lead to a lot of introspection and change, because all they do is go on to the next way of being wrong. Or, as Winston Churchill succinctly put it: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” Indeed. The profundity, depth, and breadth of their wrongness doesn’t seem to put a dent in their confidence in their judgment and in their politics. And the two generally go together because people often succumb to confirmation bias, if they’re not outright lying (which also can certainly happen). In summary, a mind is a difficult thing to change. Errors of this magnitude should spark a great deal of reflection, but they rarely change a person in any fundamental way – particularly pundits, who have gone on public record with their erroneous statements and are frantically trying to salvage their reputations and keep readers’ trust. Change is hard for many reasons, but here are some: (1) Psychological – this applies to the political but also the personal. A lot of people want to protect their pride and save face, and excuses or rationalizations seem to them to be a better mechanism than admission of error or fault or stupidity or failure. (2) Political – such errors (whether true errors or outright lies) are usually intertwined with the political goals of the person and what they want to be true. They are embedded in a belief system built of many separate elements going to make a whole and to determine the person’s political goals. The person still believes in all of this and doesn’t want to undermine those goals or to question them. It is too threatening to the sense of self and of life purpose. (3) Financial – sometimes a person’s job would be threatened by a switch in viewpoint of any significant magnitude. (4) Social – a real change of heart, a true mea culpa, could easily cause rifts with family, friends, and colleagues. Do not underestimate this factor. For me, points one and two didn’t really matter; I’m not sure why. I was interested in the truth as best I could ascertain it. The third point was irrelevant; I was not employed in the pundit business at the time of my political change and had no intention of ever being in that line of work (which just goes to show you how wrong a person can be). As for number four, it was big – or would have been if I’d been aware of it, but I was so naive that I had no idea it would happen to me until the change cat was already out of the bag and I was faced with much conflict with friends and loved ones. If I’d seen it coming I don’t think it would have stopped me, but in fact I never saw it coming so I never had to consider it." Nice article. I have no trouble admitting I am wrong. It is probably a character flaw or something. Just yesterday, I had to do so here on the blog. Coyote has a must-read blog post on how progressives are defrauding poverty numbers! I never understood the fear of being wrong. I try not to make a habit of it, and I an unwilling to take a position without thoroughly evaluating the underlying facts, which generally keeps me out of trouble, but if I am wrong, I admit it, change my understanding of the facts, alter my worldview as necessary and move on. When Will Rachel Maddow Be Fired?
If you want to understand what is going on, there are three books you need to read. Book Links - The True Believer When Prophecy Fails Paperback Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (Harriman Definitive Edition): The Classic Guide to Crowd Psychology, Financial Folly and Surprising Superstition When Prophecy Fails is the seminal book on how cults/ mass movement collapse, we are now faced with the waiting period while we wait for the progressive cult to implode. Report Hyped By Climate Alarmists Warned: Millions Dead, Nuclear War, & Sunken Major Cities By 2020
Every prediction has failed, which is the sure mark of a cult. Keep it up, guys. Eventually, even the progressive rubes will catch on. Russian YouTubers Create Gas-Powered Replica Of Tesla's Cybertruck Using A Hatchback And Some Sheet Metal Nicely played! And their Cyber Truck works. They really should have laminated on two broken window decals! Scientists Say Aliens Should Have Already Visited Earth
Or we are so inconsequential and backward they have no interest. The latter seems to be more likely. By the bye, how many Chinese visit in Haiti every year? Is Social Media The New Tobacco?
Nope. Tobacco is nowhere near as destructive as social media. It is more like Fentanyl. I do not seem to have the addiction gene. I've tried many addictive things, but none of them ever take. Just lucky, I guess. "Literally A Brick": Tesla Seizes Up Two Days Before Christmas In Holiday Horror Story
Tesla might be the worst, but it is by no means the only auto with these problems. The computer with wheels is not ready for prime time. With most non-Tesla autos the problems tend to show up during the first year production models or about five years after purchase when minor problems in wiring turn into costly major computer fiascos. I'll keep my old car, and continue to ride the motos more. I bought the Yamaha XSR 900 for $6,500, with 950 miles on the clock. I'd lose more than $6,500, just driving the Tesla off the lot. A big plus, the Japanese motos seem to have very few electronic/computer problems even many years after being driven off the lot. Most of this is likely due to the fact that motos commonly only have one computer, not multiple computers,which need to communicate together to make the car function. The other upside is the ECU in the moto seldom costs more than $1,000 and is often less if it does go bad. |
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