Tag: experts

Sheep(le), Wolves and Sheepdogs

America, Family, Society & Culture, Values

If you’re not familiar with the concept of the three types of people: sheep, wolves and sheep dogs, I strongly urge you to read about it in Lt. Col Dave Grossman’s book, “On Combat”. Sometimes it’s not easy to tell which category a person falls into until circumstances or events make it plainly obvious. One of the things the COVID-19 situation has done is make the distinctions more transparent.

Very briefly, and quoting from the book…

“If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen: a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath–a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? Then you are a sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.”

The vast majority of people are sheep. This isn’t a pejorative term, unless of course we’re referring to “sheeple”. Sheeple are docile, fearful, easily-led, easily-manipulated, often ego-centric, gullible and seek the approval of others, particularly “expert authorities” and some kind of outside validation for their actions.

The truly evil sociopaths are of course wolves, but we can characterize scammers, demagogues, fearmongers, ‘hypercrits’ (.sic), ‘patronizers’, ‘condescenders’, megalomaniacs, holier-than-thou types, petty bureaucrats and of course, the majority of politicians as wolves too!

FInally, there are among us, thankfully, sheepdogs: combat soldiers, intelligence operators, police, firemen, first responders, much of the medical community, community emergency response teams and myriad volunteers who seek to serve others.

Look around you these days and you’ll clearly see who’s who.

What does this mean for our new lives… our during and post-COVID lives?

If you are a sheep. I strongly urge you to seek out, get to know, listen to and if need be, follow one or more sheepdogs whom you can trust and try to help as they seek to protect and serve others.

If you are sheepdog, I strongly urge you to embrace your role and let people know you care about them, will try to look out for their well-being, will defend them (with violence if necessary!) against evil and will lead from the front, not from your behind (.sic).

A few years ago a regional newspaper run by wolves and staffed by sheeple, in a fit of anti-Second Amendment pique, published an online, interactive map of those of us with concealed carry gun permits. Their attempt was to ostracize and shame us. It backfired.

No less than three of my neighbors, after seeing that I (and no-one else within a radius of about five miles) had a carry permit, quietly told me something to the effect of, “If the s— hits the fan, I’m coming to YOUR house.” Besides offering to mentor them on firearms training and permit acquisition (usually met with a “noooo, I could never do that…”) I reassured them they could indeed rely on me to help them in a dire situation, and if necessary, I’d given them on-the-spot training!

If you are a Sheeple, you’re not reading this but if perchance you do I urge you to wake up, shut up, engage your brain and do something useful instead of whining, weeping, wailing and gnashing your teeth!

Finally, if you’re a wolf, you too are probably not reading this. But I would strongly urge all wolves to be mindful of the rapidly increasing number of sheepdogs who are coming out of their doghouses to confront the evil you represent. We’ve thrown the bulls— flag on the field and while we haven’t seen apocalyptic civil unrest at this time, we’re ready to confront you and will not hesitate to defend our families and our friends from everything from petty unrighteous dominion to violent threat.

This crisis has clearly brought out both the best and worst in people. I have no data to support this, but I would not be surprised if the number of sheepdogs reading these words is greater than for most blogs. Why? Because people who would actually take the time to read the reflections and musings of an old, traditional fart like me probably care deeply about their loved ones, their communities and our nation. I expect many of you are courageous in the face of hardship and would, like a sheepdog, step up when called upon (if you’re not already doing so) to defend the flock.

May God bless the Sheepdogs and the Sheep. May He help the Sheeple and may He render the Wolves impotent…

Grumps’ First Law of Experts as Applied to COVID-19

America, Economy, Family, Health Care, Politics, Reason, Science, Society & Culture, Uncategorized

“On any subject one can find at least twelve world-renowned experts citing documented, empirical, irrefutable evidence to support arguments that are diametrically opposed to one another.” – Grumps

Who you gonna believe? Dr. Anthony Fauci? Dr. Deborah Birx? Dr. Oz? President Trump? Secretary Steve Mnuchin? Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy? Senator Chuck Schumer? Senator Mitch McConnell? Larry Kudlow? Rachel Maddow? Laura Ingraham? Nancy Pelosi? Andrew Cuomo? Chris Cuomo?

Simply put, there are no end of experts, pundits, commentators, ‘contributors’.

Have you ever wondered why these people after being interviewed by some television host most often say “Thank you,” at the end of their segment, right after being thanked by the host? If it were I, my last words would be “you’re welcome”, or “happy to contribute”, or “my pleasure”, or even a simple nod. No, most say “thank you” or “thank you for having me”.

The reason is simple. The media is theater and these people being interviewed are being paid to entertain (.sic…they claim to inform but they’re mostly offering opinion, parroting someone else’s commentary, or simply making up stuff on the fly) so I’ll say entertain rather than inform despite even the best of intentions. If they’re not being paid, they’re hoping to someday be paid. If they’re neither being paid or hoping to be paid they’re desperate for attention and recognition in order to advance their careers, at best, or just their egos, at worst. They got their 15-180 seconds of fame. That’s why they say “thank you”.

I say despite their best intentions because many of the talking heads really do try to present relevant, useful, information and some even say what they really think. And some tell the truth, some omit the truth, some flavor or color the truth, some think they’re saying what’s true, and some disclose that they’re offering their opinions, which many take as truth.

On the other hand, there are many who intentionally deceive, ‘spin’, twist and color truths as well as outright lies to further their agenda. The more outrageous the deception, the better to “make it bleed”, thus “lead”.

And of course, depending upon where one sits on the ideological continuum, lies are truth and vice versa, spin is omnipresent…it’s a question of degree.

So whom to believe?

Ourselves. We went to school and supposedly learned how to think there. Instead of lapping up what the talking heads tell us, we need to think for ourselves. And the thinking needs to be critical. If what we’re hearing is contradictory, obscure, wrapped in gobbledygook or simply sounds like nonsense, it probably is. Doesn’t matter who’s spouting it and it doesn’t matter how much of it is fact, applicable to our own circumstances, or how much is conjecture, fiction, outright falsehood, etc.

We need to believe in our own God-given good judgement and make decisions that are right for us, not just run along with the sheep.

The only expert needed is us.

The United Church of Earth

Reason, Religion, Society & Culture

Environmentalism, or what we used to call Conservation in saner days, has become, for all intents and purposes, a religion. There is little difference between the fire and brimstone sermons of fundamentalist preachers and what’s emerging from the mouths of the spokesmen of today’s increasingly popular faith: The Green Movement. I hasten to insist that I’m not denigrating religion. I’m merely pointing out that we need to call and treat worship of the environment and Mother Earth what it is, and push back on the nonsense that it’s science.

As with most subjects, the First Law of Experts (which see) applies here. I don’t need to produce a list of all the PhD’s and world-renowned “authorities” who can cite irrefutable, documented, empirical evidence that climate change is man-made and that we are going to use up Mother Earth’s resources within ten years (that goal post, by the way, has been moved at least five times in just MY lifetime!), and that we must immediately ban the use of all fossil fuels, stop eating meat so we can destroy our flatulent cow population, etc.

Could we all check the hysteria for a minute and remember what we were taught in 6th grade science about the scientific method and photosynthesis?

Two of the principles underlying the scientific method are reproducibility and repeatability – a hypothesis or theory doesn’t even become a tendency, much less a law, unless the theory can be tested in a controlled setting. Know any environmentalists who’ve been able to prove any of their “settled science” using the scientific method? Of course not. What they’ve done is “interpret data”. But not only is the data crap, a lot of it has been falsified or just been made up. Again, I won’t enumerate all the environmental data scams that have been foisted upon us.

As for “carbon footprints” and all the nonsense about reducing CO2 emissions. Remember what our 6th grade science teacher taught us happens to plants at night? Oh yes…in photosynthesis they TAKE IN carbon dioxide and produce OXYGEN…kind of important for life on Earth. Oh, and “Greenhouse Gas”? Guess what is far and away the most prevalent one. Water Vapor! Sigh…and that ain’t man made.

True believers can ignore the scientific method of course and forget 6th grade science because they absolutely, fundamentally BELIEVE what their environmentalist, Earth-worshipping prophets and pastors have taught them. They can feel it in their bones. They’ve seen it on Insta-gram; they’ve heard it from Al Roker who has given his testimony of having “witnessed it first-hand”, and they have had it confirmed by the most authoritative source of all, Twitter!

Not just the First Law of Experts but also the law that “He who has the loudest megaphone wins in the court of public opinion,” also applies. One of the huge downsides of the Internet and the age of Social Media has been the placing of 1,000 watt amplifiers in the hands of so many fringe lunatics. With the right catch phrases and the most outrageous attention grabbers, United Church of Earth congregants have fanned out to proselytize and saturate the airwaves.

And so as we must with so many insidious movements today, let’s follow the money. Oh wait, it’s darn near impossible to do that! Many investigative journalists and truth-seeking organizations have tried. What we get as a result of their painstaking effort is a spiderweb on top of a patchwork of money and influence connections that all reveal the same m.o.: power hungry politicians and megalomaniacal globalists bent on control receiving “just a sliver” of the money flying around, much of it extorted or extracted from businesses or the public from influence-peddling (think the Clinton Foundation). They’ve succeeded in making even Mother Earth a victim, and if you’ll just text $10 to them, they’ll fight those nasty corporations and people on the Right who are exploiting her! 

I urge everyone to take 3 minutes to read the Heritage Foundation commentary that puts it far better than I can. It can be found here.

The Green Movement, Climate Change, Environmentalism…whatever you call it… listen to its sermons, read its writings, contemplate and ponder what its acolytes are testifying at your own risk, and use your own judgment as to whether you’ll put money in its Church donation tray on Sunday, or give it to, say, The Gary Sinise Foundation. I’ll go with Gary Sinise. 

The First Law of Experts

Society & Culture

Seems like EVERYONE is an expert nowadays. The talking head on the television is an expert. Your neighbor down the street is an expert. Your barber or hairdresser is an expert. Your twelve-year-old with her iPhone in her hand or pressed against her ear is an expert, and so on and so forth!

Here’s the law:

“On any subject one can find a minimum of twelve, world-renowned experts who can cite irrefutable, documented, empirical evidence to support arguments which are diametrically opposed to one another.”

Think about it. Name any subject. Do a search on it. You will receive a zillion “hits” ranging from complete and utter nonsense to what just may be real, valuable information. It’s frequently difficult to tell the difference!

Take, for example, the subject of vaccinations and the controversy over whether they cause autism. Or, how about mammograms, or PSA tests for prostate cancer? What about whether or not holding cell phones to our ears causes brain tumors?

How about a really critical subject like, say, “strawberry jam”. Do a search on this very important food group and in .51 seconds you will get 7,500,000 “hits” (no kidding!). Among them you will find scholarly articles from experts on how to make it, the best ways to use it recipes, discussions on preserves vs. jam vs. jellies and whether they’re interchangeable…you get the idea.

How about the serious topic of healthcare. One would hope that visiting several doctors for an upper respiratory infection would result in similar diagnoses, prognoses and prescriptions. But it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that there will be significant variation in what one doc says versus another, ranging from “take two aspirin and call me in the morning” to ” let’s run blood tests to ensure you don’t have tuberculosis,” to “I’m going to order an MRI to rule out a structural anomaly in your lungs.”

So, there’s a corollary to the First Law of Experts. It goes like this.

Corollary 1 to the First Law of Experts

“Only listen to those whom you trust and apply critical thinking of your own to ascertain what’s right for YOU.”

In other words, in these times of information overload, be skeptical of experts, trust your own judgement and don’t allow yourself to be misled by broad generalizations or people who have ulterior motives like their own interests at heart.

Copyright © 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 - All rights reserved - Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy