A crisis is not an unplanned event for intellectual elites, but an opportunity and a necessary ingredient for the kinds of social change that the people would never tolerate otherwise. Bill Whittle shows how an old Thomas Sowell quote explains the government reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.
HERE’S THE QUOTE:
“There’s something Eric Hoffer said: ‘Intellectuals cannot operate at room temperature.’ There always has to be a crisis — some terrible reason why their superior wisdom and virtue must be imposed on the unthinking masses. It doesn’t matter what the crises is. A hundred years ago, it was eugenics. At the time of the first Earth Day, a generation ago, the big scare was global cooling — a big ice age. They go from one to the other. It meets their psychological needs and gives them a reason for exercising their power.”
— Thomas Sowell
43 replies on “If Intellectual Elites Can’t Find a Crisis They’ll Make One to Get the Power They Crave”
let’s see: 12:35 long video segment = 0.2097222 hours; times $0.57/hr = $0.37 for this segment. So, 13 cents for Bill and 12 cents for Scott and Steve? Is that about right? Don’t spend it all in one place, guys!
Years ago I remember hearing the term “pseudo-intellectuals”.
Back then, I paid no attention to such trivia. I had a life: a family, a Naval career, and a home to build and sustain.
Today, “pseudo-intellectuals” comprise the vast majority of the intellectuals you and most others refer to. Pseudo-intellectuals possess no genuine skill, talent, or brilliance. They are images; reflections of their own egos lacking value and substance.
Rare exceptions, such as Thomas Sowell, Victor Davis Hanson, who I consider the most brilliant historian of our times, on a par with the late Charles Krauthammer, are true intellectuals.
That joke about communism being designed by politicians was very apropos. But it applies just as well to the perverts in the false gender movement who corrupt children. It’s as if gas chambers were too obvious, so they are trying multiple half-ass strategies instead. Never mind if their own troops are prone to subjecting their own kids to their experiments. No wonder the left doesn’t want us to be able to cast the lead recall ballot: It only requires one successful vote to get a Newsome out of office.
Bill is great, as always. Steven is the marzipan that makes it worth the ride. But here, Scott is Genius. Sowell knows he is an intellectual, but one that shies away from the Ivory Tower. We need both; those who will do and those who can think, as Bill has said. There is always a call for young strength, but it must be tempered, as with Sowell, by wisdom. Else we become AOC, the quintessential sock that blows in the wind, not even mindful of Jefferson’s quote to “On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
Inspired men. Seek why they are…
There aren’t enough signs in this world for all of the stupid people!
Big deal, a branding iron would work better anyway.
Why didn’t I think of that?
Almost all bad decisions are preceded by, “Somebody has to do something.” IT is that public outcry which motivates these types not to solve a problem but to further their own power. This is how most Wars start because people want something done but it is not the peoples job to know how to solve the problem instead we hire “Experts” to do these things but free of any accountability. In the mid 70’s I was told an Expert knew no more but was willing to put his dick on the line. These days Experts are a dime a dozen but when is the last time you have seen an “Expert” publicly shamed?
Experts are just cover, you can just pick one for your desired outcome and others can as easily pick one for the very opposite.
NEVER!! To answer you question.
Guillotine construction:
https://guillotine.dk/pages/constr1870.html#:~:text=Leon%20Berger%20an%20assistant%20executioner,were%20based%20on%20his%20design.
Can’t believe they made it through that topic without referencing “Top People”.
Very disappointed in Steve for that. 😉
I am going to make an effort to read more of Sowell’s books.
What’s the news here? All those elites and politicians have all their power granted by the population. Yeah, the PEOPLE! Most of those actually demanding some action, and all too happy to participate in it.
It does not have to make any sense — especially as the doers could not tell the difference anyway. 9/11 hits: people demand police state, mass survelience and gets it. covid hits: people demand nice masks and lockdowns. Against the actually reasonable alternative to do the nothing and live the life, accepting, there is that 0.01% risk we face every day. And that at some point we all will die.
What is the percentage of people in your vicinity that stand firmly against all those actions? For me it is maybe 1%? We know for several millenia that the populos wants bread and circus — they have the bread for some time and this whole mess serves is the great circus.
In the beginning of rona the people did not demand masks and lockdowns. We agreed to do it for 2 weeks because of what we were told the risks were at that time.
We agreed to do it for the good of all. We stood together for once. Were we fooled into doing it? I think so.
Then they kept extending the deadline. After a while the Un-sheep among us saw that something else was going on.
9 months later even more realize it’s a crazy political power and money grab and rights restrictions, yet most still wear the mask and stay at home. Losing their businesses, their right to see their sick elders, their right to sunshine and fresh air. Why?
They turn on the “news” every day and allow the “fear porn” to keep them scared to death. They are so scared and so brainwashed they cannot see the obvious.
The initial 2 weeks was perfectly reasonable. (the idea at least, the details of what “lockdown” means varied.) It was a new threat, lack of info and the impact of 2 weeks pause looked in balance with expected impact based on the data we had.
It was even in line with usual laws, that allow governments to use special powers in emergency and response to natural disasters fit the original aim well.
The things went astray right after — the data arrived, the emergency ceased, everything should have gone back to normal, while relevant work continues. That part did not happen. The power players did not want it to end and the people did not either, the majority just accepted the endless continuation and a majority was even happy about it. We can blame the narrative, but it would not work if not falling on good soil in the minds, and align so well with deep desires.
The BS was evident very early on, and plenty people called it out, yet the voices did drawn. Not only because of censorship, but because those thoughts did fell on concrete. Prime case for Wizard’s first rule application.
The “small” business owners saw it better due to close impact but they were never a significant portion of the population.
What do we expect after decades of “Tell-a-Vision”, propaganda, and indoctrination? Lot of people don’t even know how to think for themselves or take responsibility anymore. They are like drones or sheep and have been manipulated through FEAR. Most have no idea what fear is or how bad it could get if we allow it to go on.
People wake up when they’re ready, had enough . . . or they don’t.
2 Chronicles 7:14
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
King James Version (KJV)
Too bad the people who are forcing their beliefs on us are neither praying, seeking the face of God, nor turning from their wicked ways. I think we should all pray for guidance, normalcy, peace, etc., but we still have to do something. “Pray, then move your feet.”
The camel’s back is making creaking noises and my ammunition shelf is full!
All it would take to stop these “elites” (I hate calling them that, even ironically) is the people standing up and saying no to all their schemes and manipulations. Yet that doesn’t happen. Why?
It’s perfectly obvious what’s happening. It’s perfectly obvious that their tweaking the dials and levers never makes things better (which, by the way, gives them their next crisis in a perpetual negative feedback loop). It’s perfectly obvious what contempt they hold for everyone, themselves most of all. So, why weren’t they stopped from the beginning, let alone now at every turn? How did they accumulate so much power?
Why do we let this happen?
I will say that since Gov Jolson’s latest edicts in VA I have noticed a definite uptick in people NOT wearing masks. Especially in grocery stores. The hardware store (the local one I go to not big box) has been trending towards more without than with for quite some time.
This gives me some hope that sheepul are starting to think for themselves.
I went to my grocery store the other day and simply looked for people without masks and didn’t see a one. This is strange because back in say May there were more people not wearing them.
Our “governor” has “edicted” that a mask must be worn inside businesses and has allowed the local/county cops and ATF to raid a restaurant in Lyons, CO. They removed the patrons, ATF seized their alcohol, and cops shut down their biz . . . All without a warrant!
Some local cops and country sheriffs are openly defying the “edicts”, but many are not. Many cops are enforcing “edicts” like jackboots back in the day. Oathbreakers all.
Again, I ask people to ask the officers “What LAW am I breaking?” An edict is not a law.
There has to be a way for local business owners or even, say, citizens, to go to court and seek injunctive relief from these authoritarian edicts not rooted in science. This should be our next move. It would be similar to the federal judges blocking the enforcement of President Trump’s executive orders.
Of course, the state will respond with, “It’s science!” at which point we can produce testimony from all the experts which have been silenced in this discussion. The guys in New Jersey who had their gym closed were getting together a science-based reply to their shutdown. Not sure where they stand with it.
Up until now, this has been a scattershot approach. In my opinion, there are two reasons for this. First, we trusted that our leaders were willing to reopen as the threat was reevaluated and reduced with the help of actual science and new knowledge. Therefore, the attitude was wait and see. We all reasoned this would be over in a matter of a couple months and so there was no need to resist.
I no longer believe these tyrants have any intention of reopening. Beijing Biden is already talking about climate change lockdowns. This stopped being about the virus and became all about control a long time ago. To think otherwise is naive.
The second reason our approach has been scattershot is that individual citizens have been isolated in their stories and unsure of what to do. While some have made valiant and impressive individual attempts, we need coordinated action. Big Tech knows this, and their censorship and removal of anyone from their platforms promoting anti-lockdown agendas and events is thoroughly disgusting.
A coordinated reopening of businesses with families and children present and cameras rolling from trusted outlets including our own handheld devices would end this in a heartbeat. Let the governors of these states try to close down businesses with cameras rolling and the owners’ wives and children crying. Then we can use that footage come next election to vote the bastards out.
We can also seek relief from excessive fines and gestapo health departments and liquor control boards. The governors and other state and local “leaders” have used these as weapons to force compliance while lying to the public. They hide behind “safety reasons” as supported by the science of disease transmission when, in fact, they don’t have the scientific consensus they need.
If all epidemiologists and other people in the field agreed that this virus was killing otherwise healthy people of all ages right and left, then sure. Lock it all down until we have a handle on it. But this is not that.
Problem is that all scientists don’t agree with the lockdowns. Hell even Fauci said we should reopen schools. Why aren’t we doing that?
The other enormous problem is that even if all scientists did agree, we have no way of trusting this result. Do they all ACTUALLY agree or are dissenters being forced into compliance to save their jobs, careers and grant money? We have a scientific establishment that works with the globalists to silence opposing voices, and therefore many millions of people, myself included, don’t believe the bleating consensus sheep in the science community whose dissenters within are probably just going along to save their behinds. For them, it’s about survival.
We need to use the truth to embarrass, and I mean REALLY embarrass, these “scientists” along with the government health officials and politicians who have used their “expertise” to justify lockdowns without consideration for other options AND the members of the fake news media who have been pushing their propagands with zero pushback. We need to incinerate their credibilty and make it blatantly obvious to every single American that none of them can be trusted. Come election time, we simply play their well-documented mistakes…the ones we’ve been using to win in court…on a continuous loop. At that point, all the corporate money in the world won’t help them overcome the fury of We the People.
We also curate a list of “scientific experts” and fake news personas complete with attached examples of why they can’t be trusted. Any doubters can review the list of discredited individuals and its corroborating evidence for themselves.
So how do we do this? What weapon will we use? High quality, easily consumable material destroying their positions. Short bits on playlists and websites with supporting information. The documentation must be unimpeachable and thorough. If we flood the market with easily consumable bites of truth, they won’t stand a chance.
We WILL win. God bless.
I know it’s a long shot but my move it to wear a mask that I purposefully designed to make people uncomfortable. The best part is that if anybody says anything, at least mine has some credibility as a baffle. Unlike those anemic vegan friendly masks.
I sure hope you’re right!
I think we felt they would get over their petulance, their constant offended triggering, etc. (Ignore the village idiot.)
But they’ve been trained/conditioned to use our kindness and patience against us. (Calling us “racists” for example.)
Instead of going away by being ignored, they grew. We didn’t pay enough attention to their growth. Maybe we were busy working and paying bills.
We didn’t keep tabs on the people we elected. Their true nature wasn’t as blatantly obvious to us as it has been the last few years. They got into office at every level while we slept or we voted for them believing (once again) their promises.
We want to believe in the good in people. In “representatives” who’ll actually listen to us, etc. They don’t believe in ANY of that. They use ALL that against us.
They’ve been working this plan for decades.
Break up the nuclear family, abortions, family courts that are against the male and puts him in bondage for life (or 18 years), rabid feminism, children with one parent who grow up dysfunctional (and targeted by pedo’s and indoctrination). No father figure to learn how to be a man. The list is endless.
It’s been a long-term plan that’s now come to fruition. We see their true side because they went all out . . . any means necessary. They don’t care that we see them now because they BELIEVE they have all the power from all the sectors of society.
They took our country from us while we slept. While we were busy taking care of our families. They kept us confused, fearful, taxed to death.
They took it from us little by little over time.
I’m still working on that document, the statement of principles, and I’m at a loss as to how to continue with it. I have a big jumble of ideas with no structure.
What frustrates me most is that I keep running up against the thought of my son. He has completely bought into the left’s covid narrative. As far as he’s concerned, the only alternatives are hide at home or, to use his phrase, “die gasping.”
This indicates problems much deeper than whether or not to wear a mask. For cryin’ out loud, I was just hospitalized for covid! I talked with him from the hospital, explained that I had a mild case and that I was in no danger of needing a ventilator or going into the ICU, let alone dying, and I wasn’t worried at all. He responded by asking me to stop putting a brave face on it and tell him how I really felt, i.e. how scared I was to be near death. Presented with the reality that the virus isn’t what he has been told it is, he stuck with the narrative.
He’s just a representative of what I see as, basically, the entire nation under the age of 45, maybe higher, and a high percentage of those older than that. Certainly of everyone who voted for Biden (though my son voted Green or something). I don’t know if our side is a majority. I don’t know if the insanity can be overcome. When I’m working on my document, I keep trying to come up with the words that will inspire a movement like Bill has described in MB2A and I just can’t put it together.
This kind of thing is usually easy for me. It’s not a lack of knowledge, poor writing skills, or the ability to reason things like this out. It’s that I just don’t know if it’s possible.
When I know there’s an answer, I can always get right to it. I don’t know if there’s an answer for this.
It is sad when we see people who have been so feared and so indoctrinated they can’t use their brain to look at reality anymore. This is especially true of family. But all you can do is be honest and know you can’t change them. Pray for them, send them love.
About your document . . .
This whole situation is truly overwhelming. I think we have more than 50% on our side. The left have mastered deception. Just because they have media, social media, big corp’s, pharma, etc. doesn’t mean that’s a lot of people. It’s the power players.
We have numbers! We have millions!
We just need to start standing up and taking action!
Here’s my advice, not that you asked for it.
Stop believing it’s not possible! You’ve never accomplished anything you truly wanted by telling yourself it wasn’t possible. Even those things that may have been a long shot. What you truly wanted, you achieved. Yes?
So, the question really is . . . Is this what you truly want?
I haven’t yet concluded that it’s not possible, I’m just at a point where I’m not sure it’s possible. All that above was probably the frustration talking more than anything. And I’m putting pressure on myself because I’ve set a deadline for the document, which is wholly self-imposed. I can just change it.
You might have noticed from my comments elsewhere that I don’t do religion, so praying isn’t something I put any stock in. I know I can’t change my son – there are things I just don’t talk about with him so the relationship doesn’t fall apart.
I’ve never failed at anything I set my mind to, so I’m still confident that I can get the document right. I’ll keep plugging.
As for the country, I really can’t gauge any more which side has more people, not to mention more support, behind it. I don’t follow the media, news or social, at all. I have a select number of sources that I trust and even with those relatively objective sources I just don’t know.
Michael, I also have a son who in all respects in my judgement has good character, is intelligent, responsible etc. but he is stricken with “Covid Psychosis”, and is all in with the shutdown of our rights and freedoms in the useless attempt to control a virus. He doesn’t seem to realize (or worse perhaps care) that while the shutdown has not been an imposition on his family’s livelihood or mental health, there are millions who have suffered terribly because of it. I understand your frustration and sorrow.
Your last paragraph speaks for me, too. We may lack the left’s zealotry, but we need to match it with the might of truth and the strength of conviction.
Somehow…someway.
Michael – perhaps visual aids would help with your son. This is how I convinced my daughter that she has little about which to be worried. This is from CDC website and lags Johns Hopkins site since they wait for death certificates.
Here is the website that had the charts.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics
I’ve shown him stats, referred him to the CDC, Johns Hopkins, and more. Makes no difference. When someone dismisses fact for fancy (because only stubborn adherence to that which cannot survive scrutiny can account for this), well, people have always stuck to unsubstantiated beliefs in the face of all evidence. I think it’s fear that if they’re wrong then their whole fundamental world view will come crashing down, leaving them adrift in a universe they’ve never let themselves understand. That’s never true or, at least, almost never entirely true but there’s no convincing most people of that.
Michael, thanks for your perspective on this issue. I’ve spent the holidays with my daughter’s family, all college-educated with multiple degrees, all Center-Left leaning but trying to be fair to my husband and myself with our Conservative views. My son-in-law is a pediatrician, and my oldest grandson works through Stanford for the Cyber Security team that is currently monitoring threats to our systems. All are highly intelligent and thoughtful. And all are scared out of their minds over Covid. They live in CA, where they are bombarded daily with scary stories with no context. Back in TX where we live, people try mostly to get on with life. My grandson especially (aged 23) is very connected to government data, and is the most hysterical. And they are mild compared to my youngest son, who has kept his family in nearly full lockdown for months, swearing he won’t leave the house until all of them have had both stages of the vaccine.
I can only surmise that we’ve had a society with helicopter parents for over 20 years. No one knows how to handle bad news, let alone a crisis where some sort of perspective and coping skills are needed. Panic and fear feed off each other. News media is not help, but is rather a fomenting cesspool.
I’m more frightened by my family’s behavior and mental state than I am of any virus. I can take care of myself. I don’t know how to combat this very willful stubborness to follow the most base primordial fear instincts. There is simply no reasoning with them, they think any opposing data is trash put out by the Trump administration.
We, the people, are authorized by our constitution to take back our government when it has ceased to serve us and uphold our laws. I, for one, and probably many, don’t know how to go about this. Voting is no longer our voice. I don’t even think it is possible for decent people to run for office and get elected – first, they are revolted by the thought of joining the Swamp Creatures, and second, the election process is now a joke.
At the risk of sounding like the sore losers of 2016, I would gladly join a Resistance with the purpose of cleansing the government of the millions it employs in positions both high and low who are working patiently, diligently and faithfully to bring America into a dystopian age. We must continue our President’s work!
We have a multitude of brilliant minds on our side, Thomas Sowell certainly being one, the works of the late Walter Williams for guidance, Newt Gingrich, the Trump family, Phil Kline, Victor Davis Hanson, Larry Elder, Kurt Schlicter Mark Levin, Matt Walsh, Mike Pence, Dennis Prager, The Epoch Times, David Horowitz…the list is long, who must form a coalition of leadership for us to align with and behind. Bill, Steve, Scott – you know important people – you have influence – you have the knowledge and skills. You and these brilliant people know history, love our country and understand what it will take to Right our upside down country. Form the leadership. An army of patriots await.
I think learning from all these people is a great thing, but I don’t think we need to align “behind” them. We need to stop relying on someone to lead us. We all need to do our part, independently and en masse.
I also would LOVE to get some guidance on HOW to get rid of the corrupt politicians. Vote and/or recall doesn’t work. Protest doesn’t work (they don’t listen). Writing our “representatives” doesn’t work (they ignore us).
It seems I remember something about patriots being able to physically remove “representatives” who were corrupt/not doing the people’s will.
I’ll have to go back and read the founding documents again . . .
Just a couple of technical points:
The Constitution doesn’t authorize We the People to do anything. It only specifies which authority we have delegated to the federal government. We can do whatever we want, as long as it causes no harm to anyone else., while the government is supposed to do only what the Constitution explicitly permits it to.
It’s the Declaration of Independence that states that we have the right and the duty to replace a government that no longer serves us. And that’s true, though there’s no formal procedure set up to do it. I hope enough of us take up the gauntlet that Bill has thrown down in MB2A to get it done.
Thanks for the correction and clarification. I’m not a government scholar, obviously. I just know that the people supposedly serving us are not doing that. They serve themselves and their agenda and whoever bribes them. I have no respect for the people in our Congress or House.
But we get the government we deserve, and I will admit that I’ve done nothing to prevent any of it. I’m ashamed of that, but I’m also unable to find a path to making a difference other than supporting those who have the skills and strengths to do so on my behalf.
“Never let a crisis go to waste.”
It just feels like there are no adults among them…
They are adults who act like 5 year olds. But they are dangerous. They want their world (their reality, no matter how “unhinged”) the way they want it and will do it by “any means necessary”. Remember what they said.
You can’t fix stupid!
Merry Christmas! Thank you for the gift.