tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3377108283678197633.post3095308087109818577..comments2020-09-03T12:01:10.325-07:00Comments on Sifting and Winnowing: Open Letter to the ChancellorKevin Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11522769898898884227noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3377108283678197633.post-10863099596089756612011-11-02T19:45:27.581-07:002011-11-02T19:45:27.581-07:00"Great Spirits Have Always Encountered Violen..."Great Spirits Have Always Encountered Violent Opposition from Mediocre Minds." - Albert Einstein<br /><br />I sure wish folks would simply stick to the scientific method when looking at questions surrounding the horrific events of 9/11. IF you ONLY use common sense and a critical perspective, you will know--without a doubt--that the official 9/11 story is nonsense. Of course, we need to now go further, in so far as WHO and HOW, but that's not the job of architects and engineers, but law enforcement. They had their chance 10 years ago, but were not given the resources to carry out a proper investigation. ($600,000 for the worse crime in U.S. history v. $40,000,000 for Clinton's sexual adventures and then, only after delay after delay and stalling by the last administration!--you tell ME if that seems like an administration "looking for the truth." They blamed O.B.L. with zero evidence. Yeah--some investigation.<br /><br />Anyway, I encourage everyone to think openly on this and go to patriotsquestion911 as a good starting point. Wikispooks is another good site.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3377108283678197633.post-23902975089921725772011-10-13T07:08:27.993-07:002011-10-13T07:08:27.993-07:00Great job Dr. Barrett! I hope you get an apology ...Great job Dr. Barrett! I hope you get an apology AND your job back! Meanwhile, here's how John Stuart Mill would view the importance of "thinking for oneself" on important issues! <br /><br />ON BEING A GREAT THINKER<br /><br /> No one can be a great thinker who does not realize that as a thinker, it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think. Not that it solely or chiefly to form great thinkers that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much or even more indispensable to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature of which they are capable. There have been, and may again be great individual thinkers in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But there never has been nor ever will be in that atmosphere an intellectually active people. Where any people have made even a temporary approach to such a character, it has been because the dread of heterodox speculation was—for a time suspended. Where there is a tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed, where the discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so remarkable! Never when controversy avoided the subjects (which are large and important enough to kindle enthusiasm), were the minds of people stirred up from their foundations and the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of thinking beings.<br /><br /> He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment and unless he contends himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts—like the generality of the world—the side to which he feels the most inclination! Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or to bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and who do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of the truth which meets and removes that difficulty! 99 in a 100 of what are ‘educated’ men are in this condition—even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusions may be true, but they might be false for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them and considered what such persons may have to say. Consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the word, know the doctrines which they themselves profess—they do not know those parts of it which explain and justify the remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to be preferred!Disc Golferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07261251480741880352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3377108283678197633.post-16547725567898495612011-09-10T16:50:22.690-07:002011-09-10T16:50:22.690-07:00Methinks Dear Chancellor Martin, and All Faculty o...Methinks Dear Chancellor Martin, and All Faculty of the University of Wisconsin are chicken. They would have gone right along with the church in their persucution of Gallileo. They have tured a university from a tool of education into a tool of persecution. <br /><br />Chuck BAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3377108283678197633.post-47329366531297618252011-09-09T21:48:46.646-07:002011-09-09T21:48:46.646-07:00If anyone wants to know why this is so, I can expl...If anyone wants to know why this is so, I can explain it in simple terms.<br /><br />Society is directed by its morality, and in practice this is the law. We no longer have the law, we have a legal system. No more lawyers, only attorneys directed and lead by high priests of darkness who wear black robes and who's word is absolute. Didn't this happen in history a few hundred years ago ?Doug Plumbhttp://www.dougplumb.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3377108283678197633.post-79350662320570817002011-04-06T09:48:33.615-07:002011-04-06T09:48:33.615-07:00Thank you Kevin. A long, uphill battle but one you...Thank you Kevin. A long, uphill battle but one you're properly educated for. Peace.JPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02819618458422131325noreply@blogger.com