Thomas Sowell to Team of Rivals

If you don’t Seek to Understand Before You Seek to Be Understood, how do you know where I’m going with that question?

If I scrutinize Sowell on some things, does that automatically mean I don’t support him on others? If following the facts is what this guy’s all about and you’re a fan — shouldn’t you apply that principle regardless of the issue?

People really don’t listen.

People are just either not that interested in what you’re saying, or they are too focused on their own agenda. It’s ridiculous to see two people acting like they can’t really hear each other — by choice.

In “The Significance Principle,” authors Les Carter and Jim Underwood posit that we should listen past where the other person has finished. We should even pause before answering. Let them get their point, their story, their compliment, and even their criticism out. Completely. . . .

The ability to hear is a gift. The willingness to listen is a choice.

— Mike Greene

Speaking of which

This Tweet is in gross breach of Sowell’s standards. She clearly has no idea what’s in the link. She’s praising it on perception alone — and that is what this all about.

Do You Know Who Thomas Sowell Is?

I came up with this post by asking that question on a seemingly unrelated topic on YouTube, and the guy immediately began mocking me. Six short sentences later, he would have seen that he’s assailing me on something we agree on.

I get that a lot

How do you convey fair-mindedness in a culture that instantly supports or scorns on lickety–split perception alone? When you figure that out — lemme know.

“Compared to what”

That’s one of this key rules, right? And the Right (along with any rational person) — recognizes reality on this bit below. Whatever happened between Trayvon and Zimmerman, he had a watermelon drink on him.

The second you subscribe to narrative over fact — you have contaminated your judgment. And once you go down that road, there’s no end to it.

We must agree that it was watermelon and consider what it means: Maybe nothing, maybe everything. But you pollute the debate when you won’t even acknowledge the irrefutable.

Worse than that — you poison your purpose . . .

On that front — and this one

As I asked on The Yellow Brick Road:

Does the Democratic Party have a history of manipulating racially-charged incidents?
Has the left-leaning side of the cable clans increasingly accommodated Democrats over the years?
Can you conclude what happened to Trayvon and Michael Brown with the same certainty as the death of George Floyd?

Yes, Yes, and No — and those cannot be denied with rational argument.

By recognizing that reality — you’ve got a big problem on your hands: Once you acknowledge the truth on #1 and #2, you have to consider how much of a factor that’s been in shaping your perception for decades.

And on #3 — how long did it take you to make up your mind?

Do you know what Trayvon actually looked like? It’s not the picture on People. If you won’t even conform to fact over a can and the physical features of people involved in a fight, what makes you think you’re so clear-eyed on everything else?

And right on cue

He was a wannabe cop and was told not to follow him!

So, you wanna skip right over what transpired and go right to “gunned down” — because he was armed and didn’t follow instructions?

Wishful thinking is not an argument — not to mention the fact that preforming calcified conclusions is prejudice by definition.

“Compared to what”

And yet those who recognize the above — have no qualms about denying what’s below.

For telling the undeniable truth for nearly 20 years, I’ve been practically spit on by the very people who promote the principles I follow.

On a matter involving war in the Middle East in a post 9/11 world — 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 evidence

The rotor speed required to separate uranium isotopes doesn’t care who’s president.

In order to maintain such speeds, the material properties of centrifuges are as critical as it gets. You don’t need to interview a world-renowned nuclear scientist to figure that out — but I like to be thorough.

Which guy looks like he’s on point? . . .

Trillion Dollar Tube

To take a story this complex and convoluted and boil its essence down to 5 minutes — was no small feat:

You should see what I did with 160

Not long before this Tweet — this guy was condemning my efforts like all the rest that day.

And then he opened the doc . . .

that’s the exception

The rule is to roll back the rules — just like the Left . . .

Does “dingdong” strike you as Sowell’s standards?

180 – how fitting

Hard to Imagine . . .

That I have to explain this quote to people who seemingly live to flood the internet with his words.

As we live in a culture that wallows in the delight of “DESTROY”: It would never enter your minds that there’s a higher purpose in play here:

That I have a higher purpose in my aims should have no bearing on your willingness to consider the evidence. You shouldn’t need an incentive to see the truth, but if that’s what it takes — so be it:

Thomas Sowell could be the catalyst to turn the tide — and I have a plan for precisely how to do it.

But first

I have the lay the groundwork by telling an incredibly complex story of interrelated events driving America’s decline over decades in the Gutter Games of Government.

You can’t weigh the worth of a solution without understanding the problem. And it’s complicated for the same reason you established your perception the second I asked:

Do You Know Who Thomas Sowell Is?

Jesus, what’s the rush?

The whole point of his principles should be about this — and that takes work — especially when you don’t wanna do it:

But that’s just it . . .

It’s all about the rush:

“I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” he told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business, before recommending people take a “hard break” from social media.

Palihapitiya’s criticisms were aimed not only at Facebook, but the wider online ecosystem. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.” “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth

We get rewarded by hearts, likes, thumbs-up — and we conflate that with value, and we conflate it with truth.

One look at my Tweet should tell you that reward is not my motive, as I’ve been welcomed with rapid-fire ridicule at every turn for 20 years.

This site is a summary page acting as a portal to One Voice Became Two — where you’ll find the answer to that opening question.

Believe it or not, Glenn Loury played a key role in inspiring One Voice Became Two. In the aftemath of George Floyd, I wrote a piece called I Don’t Do Slogans and put it on his channel.

Imagine waking up one day to find his reply in the first screenshot below. A year later, I found the second. And there’s a whole other story that follows from there.

I Don’t Do Slogans

Is the basis of my homepage below — and lo and behold, my way of life.

think of conversation as a journey

Where even the tiniest kernel of truth can alter your course. No matter how much I disagree with another’s view, I’ll look for anything that’s true and work backwards from there.

What I find might not change anything or might change everything, but it’s a worthy endeavor regardless.

Ford: Rebuilding an American Icon tells of the company’s comeback after its largest-ever loss of $12.7 billion in 2006. At the helm of its turnaround was Alan Mulally — who faced quality concerns by embracing criticism from Consumer Reports.

When he says the following, it’s not some fancy quote to float — it’s a mindset that makes all the difference in the world:

We’re gonna seek to understand before we seek to be understood.

This 2:20 scene shows what serious-minded leaders look like (and not just Mulally). Ya gotta hand it to the great-grandson of Henry Ford for having the humility to see what was best for the company by putting the right person in place:

Mulally didn’t invent the phrase — but his version flows a bit better than Stephen Covey’s from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The synopsis for the “seek to understand” tenet is as follows:

Use empathic listening to be genuinely influenced by a person, which compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind to being influenced by you. This creates an atmosphere of caring, and positive problem solving.

Our country could sure use some habits like that — and these.

We’re here to listen, we’re here to learn

IMAGINE!

There are powerful forces that go to great lengths to make damn sure you don’t.

And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains . . .

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within 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 share
And 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

Your Way . . .

The American Way . . .

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.