Good essay on free speech (Or lack there-of)

[Flyin6]

NEW ARTICLE: When Free Speech is Dangerous

A guy walks into a barber shop, as the joke goes, but this is no joke.
I walked into that barber shop and took a chair to get a routine trim cut. 
After some small talk, I mentioned the latest story about Muslim children at a Philadelphia mosque. A video shows them singing songs filled with hate and shows one girl singing "we will chop off their heads” to “liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque”.
Admittedly, this would be shocking to most anyone. In this case, the barber was intolerant of the idea that the story was true.
“Ahh, that’s fake! Just another example of Islamophobia”, he shouted.
I replied that I did not think so because it was caught on video and the Imam in other sermons that were blatantly anti-Semitic and radical.
Unconvinced, the barber refused to accept it as anything but exaggerated fallacy. And as for videos, he said they’re “doctored”.
I tried to explain that the Mosque officials have apologized and are launching an investigation, having admitted to the hate-filled speeches by a guest Imam, although he did several similar sermons over months at the same Mosque.
The barber was agitated.
It was clear that the conversation had to end as the escalating emotions were not constructive to a conversation or debate.
After getting my haircut, I sat in my car and thought about it. I wondered if we are now a society that cannot talk civilly about a core group of subjects.
Islam is one of those subjects, but there are other flash points.
I’ve tried to talk to those who champion climate change and global warming. While I agree that humanity is contributing to the problem, I don’t believe America can solve it alone while penalizing itself by spending billions of dollars. Many other countries contribute much more pollution than we do and they do nothing about it.  The most important violator is China.
But don’t try to debate that with a climate change advocate. If you don’t immediately agree, you will be called a denier, dumb and dangerous.
Then we have the New Green Deal (most do not know what it is) which says we are nearing the time when humanity reaches the point of no return. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exclaimed that we have only 12 years left. Beto O’Rourke had to outdo her and claims that we have only 10 years.
Never mind that Al Gore said in 2006 that we have only ten years to save the planet from global warming. He said the experts can’t be wrong.
Other claims are memorable. On Earth Day, 1970, scientists said that civilization would probably end in 30 years. At the same time, all the scientists/geologists were claiming that the world’s supply of oil would run dry by the year 2000. I remember this well as I endured the ‘70’s Oil Crisis.
On the other hand, some were forecasting the Earth to be eleven degrees colder by the year 2000.
Then we have the most explosive subject of all: abortion. Try having any kind of normal conversation about life over abortion. Protestors on both sides collide, sometimes violently. It gets brutal while the country’s political actions are moving farther apart.
In Virginia, the Governor has been talking about late term abortion and even after it is born. Most call it, “infanticide”.
At the other end of the spectrum, in Georgia, they just passed a law that says if a heartbeat can be detected, you cannot abort the baby.
Pro Choice advocates will call you a moron at the mere hint of opposition.
Pro Life advocates will silently fall into prayer or call you a killer.
There is no room for compromise. Let the lawsuits begin.
If Islam, climate change, and abortion are not inflammatory enough, there is the current in-your-face subject called, “Trump”. The opposing sides are beyond appeasement in any way.
There are Trump haters and Trump campaigners. They can’t talk to each other. Any talk about him means you risk argument, ill feeling, and lost friends and family.
I find that in all cases, people have made up their minds. They are simply closed minded, no matter what the facts are.  If one tries to present facts, one will run into the wall of “confirmation bias”.  That is, they listen only to the facts that confirm their thinking and discard those facts in direct opposition to their deep-seated bias or belief.
We are committed to our conclusions, even in the face of facts. We are chained to a specific bias and not willing to question what is right, wrong, or acceptable.
In other words, there is no basis for free thinking, free speech, free exchange.
In that sense, we are not free

[cj7ox]

There is a great deal of truth in that. As a college instructor, I've had to deal with this quite a bit. The students are that bad, if you have them do the research and build their own conclusions. The other professors, though, you would think they were ordained with the infallibility of god. Their opinions, no matter how far fetched and illogical, are "fact".

[Flyin6]

I wonder which psychological factor energizes this??

It seems so that everyone feels they are "right" or mo-better put, "correct" about a given topic. I think what we have lost is the ability to park it in neutral for awhile and not be offended or anything, and just listen to the speaker to ascertain the factual basis for their belief.

So for some reason, I find myself debating university level professors more often that I'd prefer. And I usually can win any argument. The technique I use is to go "Quiet mode," and really listen to what they are saying. Almost always I discover that the very basis for the argument construct is based in a falsehood. The secret, you see is to determine on what the argument is based.

Many men are bad because men eat cheese. Some eat green cheese, and since the green cheese is mined on the moon, it is bad and makes men bad. Most arguments liberals make are based on some base premise which is wholly untrue. We need to dial down carbon emissions because nuclear power plants are emitting too much carbon...and crazy stuff like that. Stopping the US from using coal will positively global temp rise. Well we have a few dozen coal fired plants whereas China and Brazil, have what 5,000 and working on 2,000 more. We couldn't make a pimple on a nat's butt difference in total emissions if we just all committed suicide.

It's easy, just try it. But the larger issue is that something in the logic center of the left brain ain't werkin'. So I wonder has all these diagnosis of kids with whatever abnormal behavior bull crap medicine is labeling today has destroyed or affected the human brain's ability to reason. One might just argue that big pharma wants us all to be sick so they can pump us full of their product so they can all afford new homes on long island.

I don't know but backwards is fast becoming accepted as normal and the rate of change is quickening. Twenty to thirty years ago, being gay was not a healthy thing, but hidden. And a few scant decades later, it is celebrated as some kind of new freedom, elevating one to a higher level of humanity. What it really does is lock in the devil's grip on that person's coffin, which is marked for a one way trip straight down. But try and swim against the tide and you are labeled as one of the ever popular or becoming popular bad things like being white or old or "religious" or saying Islam just may be responsible in some tiny part for JUST ABOUT EVERY WAR GOING ON.

Ya know, I am just some old, dirt floor Armee warrant officer helo pilot. And in today's construct, none of that is good. But in being these things, knowing who I am and not giving a shat what some lunatic thinks about me allows me to simply say the simple truth, and is's almost as though it is expected. And I wear the insults as honorably as I did my various colorful things I used to hide holes in my dress green uniform. But you who aren't as fortunate to be old, may want to start pickin' up the guidion and puttin' your right in front of your left and fight this fight yourself. We old geezers ain't gonna be around forever.

Hmmm just had a nice thought. lying on my death bed taking my last breath with my loving family all around, using the last of my strength to choke the life out of some liberal...Hmmm, so nice...

Did I just CIEMR??? ya, think so...cup of columbian soothing the throat and addin' some respectable weight to my chewed up hands...Hmmm, another nice thought, what a mornin' its starting to be!

[cj7ox]

Don, I think the root cause is a bit simpler, and comes in two parts.

1) Most educators, especially at the college level, have no real life experience outside of academia. This is reinforced by the liberal education standards that discourage critical thinking. If all you know is what you regurgitate, you are dooming to propagate that information. If you have no life experience outside academia, you've never been forced to analyze problems to come up with solutions. You've never had to truly think about the information that is presented to you, to extrapolate what is important. This makes it easy for academicians to be influenced by the few liberal masterminds who are working towards a goal of absolute power.

2) Parents, to a great extent, no longer participate in their child's education (or most aspects of their raising). They rely on the education system to do this. Children never learn to think, analyze, and formulate their own opinions. This has become such a problem for the army that they actually added a significant block of instruction on critical thinking to the Command and General Staff College.

That's my deductive $0.02.

[Nate]

Don, I think the root cause is a bit simpler, and comes in two parts.

1) Most educators, especially at the college level, have no real life experience outside of academia. This is reinforced by the liberal education standards that discourage critical thinking. If all you know is what you regurgitate, you are dooming to propagate that information. If you have no life experience outside academia, you've never been forced to analyze problems to come up with solutions. You've never had to truly think about the information that is presented to you, to extrapolate what is important. This makes it easy for academicians to be influenced by the few liberal masterminds who are working towards a goal of absolute power.

2) Parents, to a great extent, no longer participate in their child's education (or most aspects of their raising). They rely on the education system to do this. Children never learn to think, analyze, and formulate their own opinions. This has become such a problem for the army that they actually added a significant block of instruction on critical thinking to the Command and General Staff College.

That's my deductive $0.02.

are you kidding me?!

[Flyin6]

I concur on the lack of critical thinking and decision making. It just isn't there. And in a world where kids walk around in a cotton ball safety sphere, how are they going to learn anything. Learning can be painful. But that's a real lesson.

Makes me thing of a training thing we would do back in my day in Army aviation. We would be flying around and the instructor would roll off the throttle. You would have to pop up a bit, then turn to some clearing or field to autorotate to. Now that maneuver is really dangerous. Call it wrong and you have almost no options. So doing it is actually a real life flirt with death.Which means the learning curve is straight up and down. I believe psychology labels that "Intensity of learning. The more so, the better you learn it.

For many years, the Army stopped allowing pilots take autorotations all the way to the ground. The safety center said it was just too risky and they sold some marty milktoast general on the idea. Meanwhile in the 160th we would install four internal 600 gallon fuel tanks, fill them up with gas and go out and do an hour or two of full touchdown autorotations.

Later when I left Special Operations to become what civilians would call "lead pilot" of a company or battalion, I would be the only pilot out of as many as 200 who had ever flown a Chinook in full autrotation all the way to the ground.

Safety is the killer of effective learning and training, I would say. Safety is not necessary, discipline and training is and is the key. As a senior aviation leader I would sometimes argue that point much to the chagrin of my commander. And I have to defend my counter intuitive statement. Know how I'd do it?

I'd ask the heckler in the last three assignments, how many accidents did the organizations have? Then I'd point out that the last three companies or battalions I was in charge of training, we had no accidents and we almost always pushed the envelope.

[cj7ox]

Don, I think the root cause is a bit simpler, and comes in two parts.

1) Most educators, especially at the college level, have no real life experience outside of academia. This is reinforced by the liberal education standards that discourage critical thinking. If all you know is what you regurgitate, you are dooming to propagate that information. If you have no life experience outside academia, you've never been forced to analyze problems to come up with solutions. You've never had to truly think about the information that is presented to you, to extrapolate what is important. This makes it easy for academicians to be influenced by the few liberal masterminds who are working towards a goal of absolute power.

2) Parents, to a great extent, no longer participate in their child's education (or most aspects of their raising). They rely on the education system to do this. Children never learn to think, analyze, and formulate their own opinions. This has become such a problem for the army that they actually added a significant block of instruction on critical thinking to the Command and General Staff College.

That's my deductive $0.02.

are you kidding me?!

Nope. Dumbest class I had to endure. I mean, how do you get to be a field grade officer without critically thinking? I found the few combat arms guys in my small-group had no issues. Some of the CS/CSS types did.

[cj7ox]

I concur on the lack of critical thinking and decision making. It just isn't there. And in a world where kids walk around in a cotton ball safety sphere, how are they going to learn anything. Learning can be painful. But that's a real lesson.

Makes me thing of a training thing we would do back in my day in Army aviation. We would be flying around and the instructor would roll off the throttle. You would have to pop up a bit, then turn to some clearing or field to autorotate to. Now that maneuver is really dangerous. Call it wrong and you have almost no options. So doing it is actually a real life flirt with death.Which means the learning curve is straight up and down. I believe psychology labels that "Intensity of learning. The more so, the better you learn it.

For many years, the Army stopped allowing pilots take autorotations all the way to the ground. The safety center said it was just too risky and they sold some marty milktoast general on the idea. Meanwhile in the 160th we would install four internal 600 gallon fuel tanks, fill them up with gas and go out and do an hour or two of full touchdown autorotations.

Later when I left Special Operations to become what civilians would call "lead pilot" of a company or battalion, I would be the only pilot out of as many as 200 who had ever flown a Chinook in full autrotation all the way to the ground.

Safety is the killer of effective learning and training, I would say. Safety is not necessary, discipline and training is and is the key. As a senior aviation leader I would sometimes argue that point much to the chagrin of my commander. And I have to defend my counter intuitive statement. Know how I'd do it?

I'd ask the heckler in the last three assignments, how many accidents did the organizations have? Then I'd point out that the last three companies or battalions I was in charge of training, we had no accidents and we almost always pushed the envelope.

I agree, Don. We are so over encumbered by safety and risk aversion that we really cannot properly train to our missions, especially the maneuver branches. Hell, the MRAP is a prime example. Politicians are so concerned that Soldier may die in combat, that they spend billions to come up with a protective platform that is useless off a paved road.

[Flyin6]

Yea, I know (On those Mraps) I would hate to think about the amount of fuel I blew through the tailpipe circling over some stuck in the mud or rolled over behemoth in _______ (Just name the country)

Instead of adding 20,000 lbs of armor, try adding 200 hours of training like Seals or "Green" gets. Take the 99% left on the cost savings and add that to next year's pay raise for mil guys. Then allow one legal kill per year by a select (lottery winning) active duty guy of a member of congress. (one who lacks moral courage, represents an interest other than american, or is open hating and working against our DOD) Enact legislation mandating 20 years hard labor for anyone who actually suggests rules of engagement other than when something is in or out of range, and maybe work on that range thing. Give us another 20%...

Pay a bounty for every designated enemy of america our boys kan, then require the body be stored in the latrine for a week prior to feeding it to pigs.

I know, I'm going all soft here, but I've spent a lot of time downrange and not "inside the wire." What matters is lethality. You cut our guys lose and a living breathing hell is coming at you. Build and legally protect that mindset. Teach "them" that we will not quit until you and all your closest friends get to do latrine duty as a corpse. It's about a warrior ethos, and a nation with enough courage to accept it. You do that and in short order our enemies will either be gone or just too scared to consider fighting us.

Just my .02 cents, but what do I know...

[TexasRedNeck]

More than most Don

I trained with some guys down in south texas who are civilians with DOD contracts. Apparently DOD sends them people to train because training rules are “relaxed” when not on base and conducted by contracted trainers. 

The Real Military finds a way.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Flyin6]

More than most Don

I trained with some guys down in south texas who are civilians with DOD contracts. Apparently DOD sends them people to train because training rules are “relaxed” when not on base and conducted by contracted trainers. 

The Real Military finds a way.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As you know, I flew for BlackWater when they were out of the shadows. Oh how I know what you said to be a FACT.
Experienced warriors, sort of working for another department. No clear ROE and all the experience in the world!