On Second Thought

Did We Make A Huge Post 9/11 Mistake?

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter last October and the subsequent reporting on the Twitter Files by journalists Matt Taibbi, Bar Weiss, and a handful of others beginning in early December is one of the important news stories of our time. The Twitter Files story encompasses, and to a large extent connects, every major political scandal of the Trump-Biden era. Put simply, the Twitter Files reveal an unholy alliance between Big Tech and the deep state designed to throttle free speech and maintain an official narrative through censorship and propaganda. This should not just disturb us, it should prod us to action in defense of the First Amendment, free and fair elections, and indeed our country.

The late great political scientist Angelo Codevilla argued that our response to 9/11 was completely wrong. Instead of erecting a sprawling security and surveillance apparatus to detect and disrupt potential terrorist plots, we should have issued an ultimatum to the regimes that were harboring Al Qaeda: you make war on these terrorists and bring them to justice or we will make war on you. The reason not to do what we did, Codevilla argued, is that a security and surveillance apparatus powerful and pervasive enough to do what we wanted it to do was incompatible with a free society. It might defeat the terrorists, but it would eventually be turned on the American people.

The Twitter Files leave little doubt that Codevilla’s prediction has come to pass. The question we face now is whether the American people and their elected representatives will fight back. The fate of the republic rests on the answer. (comments from an article “The Twitter Files Reveal an Existential Threat” by John Daniel Davidson January 2023)

Commentary on Culture, Philosophy, and Popular Topics of the Day

Truth vs. Opinion

“If you want to assert a truth, first make sure it’s not just an opinion that you desperately want to be true.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

There is a difference between an opinion and a fact. It is a fact that Individuals with body fat over 31% are considered obese by the FDA and NIH. Individuals are obese because they habitually over eat the wrong foods and do not exercise is an opinion.

While an opinion is not a fact, nothing in another’s “opinion” means anything about you. An opinion is all about the person expressing the opinion. So why do so many people get upset by the opinions of others? I think it is because they believe the opinion means something about them. This tends to trigger emotional energy which in turn triggers a fight or flight response. Either response has the effect of energizing the opinion into something meaningful. It inflates it. However, if one were to ignore the opinion, it will deflate like a leaky hot air balloon.

Example: An electric current can only flow if there are positive and negative poles. When you engage in debate about opinions, you become one of the poles. This allows emotional energy to flow. The more attention you give the opinion, the stronger the emotional energy flows.

The Bottom Line: all opinions are the personal views of the person expressing the opinion. They are not concrete assessments about any person, group, nationality, etc. When you understand this, then other people’s opinions will cease to cause you grief. You will realize the opinions for what they are: a personal view, attitude, or appraisal that means nothing about you, but everything about the individual advancing their opinion.

 “Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world.”  These words of wisdom are often incorrectly attributed to Plato but are actually derived from the writings of the poet George Eliot. Caveat: These words are relevant for today, but unfortunately many individuals who claim to agree with this idea of knowledge all too often lack the will or empathy skills necessary to really understand and share the feelings of another. In my “opinion,” this is the root cause of much of the division that exists in our world today.