I got two excellent comments, each of which I will devote a piece to.
But one sentence in Tim’s entry stands out on its own:
“Now I am typing this and thinking things over.”
Usually when somebody does some hard thinking and write me they apologize for it. They say “I could be wrong” or “this is too long” or something. They are letting their minds run free and they have been trained to feel guilty about that.
The motto of our society ius: Don’t THINK. We pay professors and experts and judges to do that for you.
In the Soviet Union, all private publication was illegal. All of those underground publications were called “samizdat,” self-publication. As with our universities, the state only allowed publishing it paid for and directly controlled. Hence your guilt about thinking out loud.
Tim didn’t apologize. That’s a good start.
I am publishing this blog myself.
We are samizdat.
Thinking is allowed here.
#1 by Robert on 01/27/2006 - 2:50 am
You are right Coach. I know so many people that don’t have a clue what they think on an issue, because they have not been told what their opinion should be yet by “The Media MAFIA”.
I have more fun just taking a news paper and pointing out the insanity and contradictions right there in black and white every day.
I get people laughing that way. And this is a point you can not get around. People will only laugh if you present a true argument. If you present a false argument, they will just look at you like “That was dumb”. So the very fact that someone will laugh at what you are holding to ridicule, is proof that they must agree.
Perhaps you can’t make people think, but you can sow the seeds.
That’s what I am out there doing, day in and day out, sowing seeds.
The Old Man of the Mountain