Kevin Pezzi, MD

Disagree with something I wrote? So do I! Read more

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

— Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)

Trivia: He and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, the noted feminist and writer, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915, when they were heading to Europe to cover the war and interview Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

If you disagree with something I wrote, feel free to challenge it. Some of my viewpoints are the antithesis (exact opposite) of what they once were. That isn't flip-flopping; that is changing opinions with scant evidence to support them into convictions with a firmer foundation of facts.

My political philosophy is an amalgamation of libertarian, conservative, and liberal principles. My opinions have changed so significantly that my conservative friends might be horrified by how I strongly believe that liberals are correct on certain issues. I've previously written about some of them, but to make this more fun, I will present others as challenges in which I offer $100,000 to the first person who can refute the logic I used in forming that opinion. Please note that due to my limited time and difficulty using my hands after I broke my neck, I cannot quickly update my previously published opinions. However, now that I am balancing the promptings of head and heart, I strongly disagree with many opinions I expressed in my writings.

I like finding people who make me think, not necessarily those who agree with me. Genius Robert Heinlein said, “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” If you can educate me, I'm all ears.

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
— Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
— Albert Einstein

“What I would like to see more often in this nation is an open and intelligent conversation, not people just casting aspersions at each other … it's unbelievable to me the way people act like third graders. And if somebody doesn't agree with them, they're this and they're that … it comes from both sides. And it's just so infantile.”
— Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon

“The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about and refuse to investigate.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
— General George Patton

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

“A lot of people risk their lives in a brief act of heroism, which is kind of cool, but Jill has what I call slow heroism. She is risking her professional life on something that her own calculations show may not work for a thousand years—may not ever. So I like to support people that are risking their lives.”
— ex-Microsoft billionaire brainiac Nathan Myhrvold speaking about Jill Tarter, who inspired the character played by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. It takes a brilliant person to see that others who go against the grain of conventional wisdom may be sages although lesser minds often ridicule their ideas.

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
— Winston Churchill

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
— Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC)

“It is socially unacceptable to be right too early.”
— Robert Heinlein

“I'd rather stand alone on the truth than with millions on a lie.”

“The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture.”
— Arthur H. R. Fairchild

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
— Abraham Lincoln

This reminds me of something stressed by one of my psychology professors, who said that society imposes rigid boundaries for what behavior is acceptable, and applies tremendous pressure trying to force people to conform to the behavioral expectations. Some of the most brilliant and productive outside-the-box thinkers led unconventional lives. One of the side effects of forcing people to think inside the box is that by lopping off outside-the-box behavior, potentially great outside-the-box ideas are lost, too.

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
— Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (1908-1965)

“You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.”
— John Eliot

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Dr. Lazar Greenfield versus the PC police
Political correctness has run amok. It is a sham that can never achieve its purported objective. Making communication more sensitive is a worthy goal, but that's not the goal of the PC police. It's therefore high time we put a nail in the PC coffin and learn a simple method that makes language less offensive while also eroding hate that spawns racism, bigotry, homophobia, and other forms of bias.

Dr. Lazar Greenfield came under withering fire a year ago after writing an editorial presenting evidence that semen contains substances that boost female mood. Dr. Greenfield's Valentine's Day piece seemed to blend a bit of science with a lighthearted spirit—apropos for that holiday, according to some. However, others didn't see any humor in it. Enraged that he would dare broach that topic, his critics relentlessly excoriated him, implying that he must be a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal with an antediluvian brain.

Episodically and rarely impolitic, perhaps, but antediluvian? And worthy of such retributive venom? Hardly.

In reality, most of us wish we had Greenfield's brainpower. He's not just a topnotch surgeon, but one whose inventiveness made him known to every medical student and doctor. Dr. Greenfield developed the inferior vena cava (IVC) filter (a.k.a., Greenfield filter) that saved many lives. Most doctors save lives, but the best and brightest advance medicine in ways that enable those innovators to save the lives of patients they never met.

Dr. Greenfield is one of those physicians who earned a place in medical history books as an esteemed innovator—which is precisely why he was attacked. No one bothers to criticize the intelligence or wisdom of janitors, dishwashers, or garbage men. When the pack of online critics smell blood, they pounce on doctors, CEOs, politicians, and other big shots. Pulling them down, analogous to what crabs do, is one of the primary ways that malicious, small-minded people give meaning to their meaningless lives. They can only dream of doing a fraction of what Dr. Greenfield has done, yet they feel entitled to get on their high horse and tear him down. That's as ludicrous as a high school dropout bellyaching about Dr. Einstein's mistakes, or a Joe Sixpack online porn fan denouncing Einstein for his avid interest in sex, not just physics. Some of the best minds in science were unusually interested in sex. With evidence suggesting that sex can improve brainpower, that may not be a coincidence.

Imagine if you as a parent were judged by your worst actions. Fair?

Imagine if others tried to characterize you by holding a magnifying glass on your flaws while ignoring your good points. Fair?

Kangaroo courts are loathed for their unfairness. Fair-minded people know that equitably judging someone requires judicious balancing of incriminating and exonerating evidence. The folks who smeared Dr. Greenfield jumped the gun, omitting the latter.

In their rush to judgment, the attackers missed something: Greenfield is no enemy of women or antifeminist, as some portrayed him. His track record in that regard is stellar, with exemplary actions that encouraged women to pursue careers in surgery, a traditionally male-dominated field that many surgeons wanted to keep that way. Greenfield, ever the innovator, broke with that tradition and extended a helping hand to women instead of doing what other male surgeons have done. To see how utterly nasty and petty some of them can be, read Walking Out On The Boys by Frances K. Conley, MD, a neurosurgeon with a first-rate mind and an impressive dedication to medicine and her patients.

Since some of Dr. Greenfield's critics are feminists (or perceived to be), my defense of him might lead some people to conclude that I don't like women, want to hold them back, or some other nonsense. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First, most of the friends I've had are women. Even when we had only platonic relationships, which was usually the case, we had a great time talking, shopping, traveling, and whatnot. I helped some of those women succeed, transitioning from low-status occupations to medicine. For example, one is now a neuroradiologist, medical school professor, and president of a prestigious medical organization, and another is a professor at the medical school I attended (Wayne State), and chair of her department at a hospital in the Detroit Medical Center.

Second, I've witnessed—and been enraged by—how too many men still treat women as second-class citizens (here's one example). Politicians can write all the laws they want, but they'll never change how people think. Women are still often discriminated against, even in everyday matters such as the one I presented. This problem is swept under the rug, not solved. I intend to solve it.

Third, I think this world would be a better place if women controlled more of it. Male leaders are often too pugnacious; their needless wars have cost trillions of dollars and killed hundreds of millions of people. Could women have done better? I think so. I could make a great case for giving women a chance to lead the world. (Excerpt from Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: “ … the main reason for the uneven management sex ratio is our inability to discern between confidence and competence. That is, because we … commonly misinterpret displays of confidence as a sign of competence, we are fooled into believing that men are better leaders than women.”)

I understand why women feel put down by a male-dominated culture (notwithstanding our laws that address only a small part of the problem), and I understand why women are so sick and tired of past and present abuses that they are hypersensitive to anything that even smacks of being another insult to their equal status as humans, but Dr. Greenfield is a friend to women, not an enemy they should target.

Judging by their savage comments, Dr. Greenfield's detractors had a field day bashing him. Their merriment and lust for his scalp were wholly out of proportion to his alleged offense. In trying to reflect badly on him, they painted themselves as ideologically intolerant bigots.

Hitler knew a thing or two about intolerance and using might to impose his will against others, didn't he?

Intolerance is how angry people vent frustration that they are not as great as they want to be. They tear others down so they seem to rise in comparison. Small-minded people excel in finding the negative in others, and delight in cutting people down to their level, whether or not those attacks are warranted. Other simple creatures—crabs—also like keeping others on their low level. Buckets holding crabs don't need tall sides or a top to keep crabs in their place; all it takes is at least two crabs. If one tries to climb out, another will pull it back down. Thom Singer correctly noted that many people “are so threatened by anyone else reaching for the stars, that they work hard to pull them back down to earth.”

Genius Hoffer hit the nail on the head in identifying how intolerance is used to shield topics that their proponents fear can't stand scrutiny. Could it be that men and women are ideally suited to give one another pleasure? Who'da thunk it?

Intolerance is the sine qua non of bigotry:

Intolerance pervades small minds housed in bodies whose hearts hate others with different viewpoints. Intolerant bigots seethe, “How dare someone disagree with me! Anyone who doesn't believe what I believe must be stupid and a bad person! Only my opinions are correct!”

Intolerance is a cancer that malignantly erodes civilization's most basic tenet: getting along with others who are different. Immature people think the world would be a better place if everyone were just like them.

This sentiment is now spreading to other parts of the world. The silent majority is fed up with how bigots (liberals or otherwise) who purport to be tolerant wield intolerance as a bludgeon to clobber anyone who dares to disagree with them. Those who truly embrace diversity welcome others with different ideas and opinions, not just different skin color or ethnicity.

I once was a staunch conservative who thought that anyone who didn't agree with me was stupid or unprincipled, but by sincerely listening to others and considering the merits of their opinions, I realized that some of my most cherished beliefs were wrong. Many of my opinions are now antithetical to what they once were. If you spot what I wrote about certain topics years ago and now, you'd never guess they were written by the same person.

In many ways, I am not the same person. I endured a succession of problems that resulted in burnout, negatively affecting everything in my life, professionally and personally. Now that I've recovered from that burnout, I am much happier, kinder to myself and others. You can see the difference if you read what I wrote during my cranky years (it is still posted on my websites) versus what I wrote recently.

My 1001 problems were amplified by a medical problem that I described in an article, My nightmarish experience with objective tinnitus. I am not trying to excuse my burnout, but after getting only a few nights of refreshing sleep in the past decade, it was no wonder I was burned out.

Many doctors are plagued by burnout, and the medical profession has yet to devise an effective antidote for it. I stumbled across one that enabled me to go from frequently livid, hating the world and myself, to feeling joy and wanting to help others (see the Doing the right thing and Helping people survive the economic crisis sections in my blog). Friedrich Nietzsche said, “To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.” My purpose in life is to help others. Many doctors entered medicine with that sentiment but were worn down by the endless demands of that profession. One of them is sleep deprivation, which affects mood and judgment.

When people are angry, frustrated, and exhausted, they often say things they really don't mean. More than a few people tell loved ones they hate them when they really don't. Humans are often so poor at verbalizing their frustrations that they can only express them as hatred, even when hate is just used to encapsulate the true emotion to help communicate it.

I don't know Dr. Greenfield personally and hence can't speak for him, but I know that most American physicians have stressful lives. People are innately wired with their fight-or-flight response to adequately cope with short-term stress, but long-term stress is something else. It can wear down even the best and strongest people, making them more prone to say things in less than perfect ways.

Dr. Greenfield's editorial could have been worded somewhat more sensitively, but humor or attempted humor often doesn't conform to straitlaced standards. Everyone knows this, but the PC and thought police suddenly feign offense when someone they deem an enemy behaves like a human instead of a cold robot.

It is easy—even child's play—to find faults expressed by people in the public eye. It is easy for me to criticize some of what I wrote years ago, but no one is born perfect. Some of us get better in time, like fine wine, while others get worse, like spoiled milk.

NBC's Ann Curry astutely noted, “Success is not what you have gained; success is how hard you had to work to get it.”

In other words, what you had to overcome to achieve success determines your level of it. Success pertains to more than just financial matters, so one can be very successful by overcoming problems and becoming a better person.

Despite the myriad stresses that all surgeons endure, the preponderance of evidence strongly suggests that Dr. Greenfield is a good person—not just a good doctor—who went out of his way to help women break down the last barrier in medicine. He never deserved to be so harshly treated. The appropriate reaction would have been to nod your head in agreement (as did a feminist friend who swears that semen elevates mood), or to groan or request more proof.

If so, please tell me about it.

Scientists often disagree with other researchers and debate whether there is sufficient evidence to support a given conclusion. Such debate is a healthy part of the scientific process and, frankly, there isn't enough of it, especially in medicine, where pharmaceutical manufacturers often hire what's known as drug whores to hoodwink other doctors. Drug makers also use chicanery to trick consumers into thinking their drugs are more helpful and less risky than they really are. Hence, I don't have a problem with people debating the merits of a scientific conclusion, but I do object when the critics go overboard, as they did in responding to what they termed Semengate—as if it were valid to suggest this matter was somehow comparable in scope with other great scandals that rocked this nation.

The PC police and others attacking Dr. Greenfield seem to think that only a reckless doctor would comment on something before it is conclusively proven, but that isn't a valid objection. Some of what science assumes to be proven isn't; some of the most basic things in medicine are based on faulty research, taken for granted, medical folklore myths, old-wives' tales, or flat-out wrong. Furthermore, scientists routinely discuss topics before the dust surrounding them settles. This bothers no one except those who are wound too tight and easily bothered, looking for a flimsy excuse to stick a knife into someone's back. PC character assassins endlessly prowl for their next victim.

Some things we now know beyond a reasonable doubt once would have evoked raised eyebrows, laughter, or professional ridicule. Indeed, some of the brightest minds in medicine responsible for the most important advances (such as the germ theory of disease) were once viciously lambasted as being idiots, quacks, and frauds. Now, of course, even children know that germs cause disease, but the foremost professors of medicine once arrogantly opined that all sensible people knew it was laughable to suggest that organisms too small to be seen without a microscope could possibly injure and kill us. Those know-it-all professors were wrong. Dead wrong.

Like Plain Janes who knock the appearance of hotties, people with brains are often intensely jealous of others with even more brainpower. The outclassed rivals will never admit their envy, which ferments in often small minds that try to elevate themselves by tearing others down.

If the PC and thought police get their way in cowering people, the vacancies left by piquant writers will be filled by unimaginative minds who might pat themselves on the back for their perpetual lack of offensiveness, but they will offend us with their perennially boring ideas. I'd prefer spicy writers with spicy opinions, even if they sometimes go too far, or if they say things I don't agree with. They may very well be correct, and I may be wrong, once again.

Imagine if the world had been scrubbed of its best writers, many of whom were too salty to be considered politically correct. Would the world be a better place? Would people be any happier? Better adjusted?

No, no, and no. In fact, hell no!

Would the United States be a better place if it were scrubbed of everyone who wasn't politically correct? Would an American PC utopia be a great place to live?

Absolutely not. Without non-PC people, the United States would likely not even exist. If you are familiar with American history, you know that the most indispensable Founding Father was Ben Franklin. The shoes of George Washington could have been filled by someone else, but Franklin had no equal.

Franklin was indisputably a polymath: a multifaceted genius. Without Franklin securing aid from France, and without his other contributions, many experts think the U.S. would have lost the Revolutionary War. Great Britain poorly managed its vast empire, so adding another weakened North American colony to it probably wouldn't have helped them defeat Germany and Japan in World War II.

Had the Germans and Japanese won, people would have a lot more to complain about than a gifted surgeon writing an editorial about a side effect of semen that my most biologically knowledgeable feminist friend swears is true. Most people know what the Germans did to the people their conquered, but the Japanese were even less civilized. They raped and sexually mutilated children, as I documented in articles on Japanese war crimes and Hirohito: the war criminal who got off scot-free. Today's Japanese people are wonderful people, but Japanese leaders circa World War II succeeded in filling the minds of their people with venom, which warped their image of us to the point we were not even viewed as being human; they referred to Americans as “kichiku (mongrel beast or mongrelized apes).” Note to the PC police: that is overt racism.

It's smart to turn enemies into friends; it's idiotic to turn enemies into more determined enemies

As Eric Hoffer wisely noted, “A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.” By that measure, the USA decidedly won World War II, because Germany and Japan are two of our strongest allies, and Americans—or at least the slice of Americans I know—genuinely like and respect Germans and Japanese people.

I think any wise person can see the merit in turning a former adversary into a good friend, but the PC police evidently don't get it. They wage malicious, ongoing wars in which tearing someone down, and keeping him down, is a paramount objective. They delight in ad hominem attacks and character assassination. They're often relentlessly mean, nasty, petty, and proud of it. They attack but never extend a hand of friendship or understanding that could do far more to enlist support for their cause.

However, it's not just the PC police who miss opportunities to turn enemies into friends; political partisans do it, too. For example, conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart gloated, “I enjoy making enemies.” The world already has enough strife and divisions; we don't need more of it.

As I discovered after being called “Chief,” there are legitimate reasons for making people more sensitive to how the words they use impact others. However, it is plainly stupid for PC police to pursue the goal of reducing offensive word usage by using hurtful language themselves. That's as nonsensical as a parent slugging a child to teach him or her to not strike others.

Accusing someone of something they aren't guilty of is an atrocity when it is motivated by hate. For example, to retaliate against me for exposing overt racial hatred in the Left, their smear merchants recklessly alleged that I am racist. For example, they claimed that I thought Native Americans “should have been grateful for their subjugation by whites.” That's absurd and a good example of their carelessness. I am part Native American, so to suggest that I or my ancestors should be grateful for their subjugation is pure lunacy. Every ethical historian acknowledges that subjugation was one of the most abominable acts in history, and I strongly condemned it in writing (in one of my books and websites) long before I learned of my Native American ancestry.

Me, happy about the subjugation of Native Americans? Hardly! You could spend the rest of your life searching but not finding someone who is more irate about that issue than me. In my humble opinion, I did a better job than anyone of illustrating the unfairness of that subjugation, which really irks me.

I'm an ardent fan of fairness (something that should be obvious to people who read everything I wrote), and that subjugation was not fair, period. It was inexcusable, and sweeping it under the rug (as most people do, with their minds attending to more important matters, such as who won Dancing With The Stars) is also inexcusable, so I don't. I stuck my neck out and addressed a historical injustice that most people prefer to forget about. Frankly, on this issue, I am further left than most folks in the far Left, yet the sages at Media Matters painted a picture of me as being further Right than Attila the Hun. Thus if you don't believe Bill O'Reilly when he complains of outrageous smears by Media Matters, believe me. Or judge for yourself. Read my opinion of Native American subjugation and ask yourself if you think I am happy about it, or support it in any way. Absolutely not!

The truth? I loathe war criminals who butcher innocent people and sexually mutilate children after raping them. In writing about those war criminals, I used a word I've heard hundreds of times (even in the politically correct 21st century) on television war documentaries and casually used in upscale liberal yuppie towns without generating any reaction. Conclusion? Many people still use that word as an abbreviation, not as a premeditated racial slur.

I also loathe businessmen who intentionally produce products that injure and kill people and pets. I don't dislike anyone because of racial reasons; race is never a good (or even flimsy) reason to dislike someone, but behavior is, when that behavior is heinous and cruel, such as raping kids and poisoning customers. The fact that I detest only their unethical businessmen, not all Chinese, is apparent in how I denounced war crimes done to them. If I were evil enough to hate them, why on Earth would I spend weeks researching and passionately writing about those crimes against humanity? The web of lies from smear merchants on the Left doesn't add up except in the minds of folks who can't put 2 and 2 together.

It's an indisputable fact that China makes too many products that are contaminated with toxins or junk that is dead on arrival or fails soon after purchase. You don't need to be a rabid right-winger (which I am not) to be upset about the toxic, shoddy stuff sent to us from China; for example, see the brilliant article CBSnews.com posted: Made in China = Piece of Junk.

Oh, the U.S. government has a nasty surprise for you: if you resell any of that toxic or dangerous junk, the Feds will hammer you. Wouldn't it make more sense to go after the companies that produce that garbage instead of the consumers who buy it not knowing of those dangers? Yes, but that would be un-American in today's wacky world in which the federal government routinely amazes us with its lack of common sense. Go after Wal-Mart, that sells much of that junk? No, they have too much money (hence, too much power), so go after Wal-Mart customers instead if they buy it and resell it at a garage sale.

The few PC blunders I made were a product of ignorance, not racial hatred. The Left wants everyone to think that if someone makes a PC blunder and doesn't fully side with them, that individual must be a bad person. However, they ignore or excuse blunders made by people on their side, such as President Obama and Rahm Emanuel, then White House Chief of Staff. Obama made a comment suggesting he thinks the clumsiness of physically challenged people is humorous; just wait until you read what Emanuel said (I'll present it below to illustrate how even the best and brightest in the Left say offensive things).

As I proved in another article, Fox News is not as fair and balanced as they claim, but they are a light-year ahead of hatemongers on the Left who lie through their teeth when that is politically expedient. The tactic of Media Matters is to throw enough mud at the wall, hoping some of it will stick. They accused me of doing things I never did and saying things I never said. They made half-baked allegations, such as suggesting that I lure people “to a page where he tries to sell you his anti-spam software.” I dissected that wildly inaccurate claim in an article that illustrates how reckless the Left can be, and how full of hate they obviously are. They are seething with animosity and enjoy attacking people who don't agree with them on everything. Thus they are bigots.

What did they say about me that was true? That I write about sex—one of the hundreds of topics I cover. The problem isn't that doctors know too much about sex, but too little. I graduated in the top 1% of my class in medical school, so of course I learned more about sex. I also took to heart the admonition of professors who implored us to never stop learning, so I didn't, learning much more about sex and countless other medical topics. Sex is vital to patients, so sex is vital to medicine. Sex was also instrumental in making Franklin the man he was, and the man he was was instrumental in helping America survive as a nation.

Had Franklin been a milquetoast man with less testosterone, today's PC police would have less reason to dislike him for his many transgressions that broke several rules in their book. Of course, without Franklin, there likely wouldn't even be PC police. Not American ones, anyway, and America is the epicenter of political correctness run amok.

Other great thinkers led less salacious lives but were still unconventional in other ways. Had they been pressurized to conform, it may have affected what they did professionally, not just personally. One of the side effects of forcing people to think and live inside the box is that by lopping off outside-the-box behavior, potentially great outside-the-box ideas are lost, too.

Many of the world's great innovators were ridiculed as oddballs with crazy ideas by their contemporaries, but we now know they were ahead of their time. Author Robert Heinlein said, “It is socially unacceptable to be right too early.” It is also often socially unacceptable to see things that other men and women do not see, or to express a thought that is news to people whose most challenging intellectual task is guessing who'll be the next winner of Dancing With The Stars.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the United States is a nation of cowards on racial matters. Gee whiz, I wonder why? Could it be that anyone who discusses anything to do with race is often called a racist even if he sticks to facts?

I was being interviewed on the radio one day when I mentioned how Michigan State University had programs to help minority students and athletes obtain college degrees. That's fine, but how they did it would offend anyone who cares about academic integrity: they had certain class sections hidden from other students—and hence inaccessible—in the course enrollment book. Students in those classes were guaranteed a passing grade if they merely showed up for the exam and signed their name. If the students attempted to answer any of the questions, they were given a B, and if they got any question correct (even if it was by random chance), they were awarded an A.

I call that an academic scam; there is no way to sugarcoat it, or to justify it. I later learned that MSU is not the only university that awards fraudulent diplomas. The PC police wouldn't object to that scam, but taxpayers should be furious at how their dollars are used to support a corrupt system that makes a mockery of academic integrity. This is obviously a newsworthy story, but the gutless media won't touch it or permit it to be discussed; the host interviewing me quickly switched to a different topic.

We're also a nation of cowards on anything that isn't PC. It's fine to bash men and insinuate they're stupid, but the PC police deem women to be a protected class—so protected that even doctors can't discuss biology pertaining to them without risk of being assailed by name-calling that turns conversations into confrontations that inevitably veers off the original topic.

With female friends saying that the main premise of Dr. Greenfield's editorial is true, but other friends reporting no such antidepressant effect, it would be interesting from a scientific standpoint to investigate differences in men and women that might explain it.

I understand that immature members of the PC police want everyone to think that sex is properly swept under the rug, but intelligent adults know that sex is a big part of the glue that binds men and women together. The last time I checked the divorce rate, marriages need all the help they can get.

The PC police seem not to understand the difference between a bad statement and a bad person.

Once free of educators, the PC police take over to maintain uniformity.

Academic freedom is central to freedom, but Americans are no longer free to say what they want. Example: a fifth-grade student was permanently expelled from his school after suggesting that a handsome, charismatic news anchor resembled our handsome and charismatic President.

With the PC police in charge, it is now a crime to say something that others might misconstrue. However, if the target is a white male, the PC police don't care if you lie through your teeth. The PC police may even join you because, being the sexist racists they often are, they don't view white males as fully human and deserving of the same respect and protection given to others. Their criteria for deciding who gets a pass and who is targeted is based on skin color and other superficialities that should have no bearing on one's basic human dignity, but the supreme arrogance of the PC police makes them feel entitled to make such pronouncements.

By focusing more on Dr. Greenfield than the ideas presented in his editorial (debating them could be illuminating and interesting), the PC police evinced their small minds bereft of culture by failing the Rickover and Fairchild tests.

The PC police habitually use heated rhetoric to turn molehills into mountains—mountains that divide people, not bring them together. PC enforcers don't understand how miserably they are failing. Instead of changing hearts and minds, they just instill fear of making PC blunders that makes people hide their non-PC thoughts by sweeping them under the rug.

Oxford University researchers found that propranolol, a beta-blocker, reduces implicit negative racial bias: subconscious racism. “The researchers believe propranolol reduced implicit racial basis because such bias is based on automatic, non-conscious fear responses, which propranolol blocks.”

Pop Quiz: Considering past research on propranolol modulating fear responses long-term after short-term therapy, what might be done in conjunction with short-term propranolol usage to possibly produce a lasting effect reducing subconscious racism? I'll give a box of chocolates to the person with the first correct response. :-)

More research: Scholars offer scientific solution to 'persistent bias' in academia

For example, Project Implicit found that “three-quarters of whites have an implicit pro-white/anti-black bias,” and even one of the professors involved in that project harbors that bias, but the penalty for racism is so high in the United States that few people have the courage to admit their bias. Cowered by the PC police, they sweep their problems under the rug, which enables them to fester indefinitely. If you are a physician or immunologist, you'll recognize the parallel between that and how some germs hide out in spots where the immune system can't touch them. To rid ourselves of germs or racism, or other bias, we need to figuratively bring the offender into the sunlight and directly attack it. However, the PC police give people a road map for how to camouflage their bias and thereby perpetuate it, not extinguish it. That's not very brilliant, is it?

Henry Ford advised, “Don't find fault, find a remedy.” I know a person who once burned KKK crosses but now has black friends who party with him in his home and pray with him in their church.

I discovered a simple but effective instant cure for racism and bias that is so effective it can even influence entrenched political bias that seems etched in stone. The antidote to bias is amazingly simple, yet it eludes the PC police. They fritter away their time, and ours, on petty squabbles. They slammed Dr. Greenfield for writing about sex, and they did the same thing to me, even though sex is part of medicine. It is taught in medical school, so all doctors know about it, but good doctors know even more. Adults should be free to discuss sexual matters in an adult-like manner, but the American attitude about sex is positively juvenile. I offered a small fortune to the first person who could logically justify those ridiculously artificial and indefensible boundaries, but no one is vacuous enough to attempt that.

Adults in the United States are more likely to possess a bizarre dichotomy about sexual attitudes. On one hand, it is perfectly OK to have risqué T&A oozing out of every television program and commercial, movie, magazine ad, product packaging—you name it. Yes, it's completely acceptable to have sexually suggestive material fed to you 24/7/365, as long as your retina is focusing on images of hot young airbrushed strangers who model for corporations that hope to sell you something. But real sex with a real person is somehow so shameful that it can't be discussed in public, or often even in private (as with a spouse or personal physician), without evoking uneasiness, apprehension, dread, and shame.

Isn't this a strange inversion of acceptability? Cheap, inescapable, in-your-face sexuality is routinely exploited by companies that hope to profit from you, but real sex—the kind that makes babies, bonds men and women together, and makes life more enjoyable—eewww! Better talk about it in hushed tones behind closed doors, like the Communists used to do when discussing freedom in the USSR before it disintegrated, or skip that topic altogether, and discuss something more palatable, such as the latest chapter in the sex life of Paris Hilton. Nuts.

The PC police help no one by sniping at doctors who write about sex. Bizarrely, they deem that a higher priority than addressing malignant racism, something I wrote about years ago when I revealed that some healthcare practitioners intentionally murder black patients. I can't think of anything more heinous than that, but if there is no political upside to covering some matter, no advantage they can gain from it, the PC police aren't interested.

I hope the PC police prove me wrong by sinking their teeth into racially motivated murder or one of the other persistent manifestations of nonsensical hatred and discrimination. While you're at it, PC police, take a minute to apologize to Dr. Greenfield. Considering how he helped women in surgery, and medicine in general, he deserves a pat on the back, not petty attacks because he didn't please all of the people all of the time. That's an unrealistic standard that no one could meet.

The mind-numbing political correctness movement expends great energy trying to take the spice out of opinions that hurt no one, but they won't lift a finger trying to combat racial hatred so malignant it ends in murder. One reason why emergency departments are so adept in saving lives is their method of triage that prioritizes the most pressing problems.

Knock, knock, hello PC police, castigating a physician for discussing whether semen has an antidepressant effect is a flagrant waste of time when considerably more pressing problems persist.

The PC police enforce a “one strike and you're out” intolerance of anything they consider offensive, such as medical subjects they deem taboo. The extremist Senator Joseph McCarthy would be proud of them. The backlash against him began when commonsensical people realized he'd gone too far and targeted people who didn't deserve to be put in his sights. The backlash against the PC police has similarly begun.

The PC movement is taking us ever further from urgent matters. It's time to get back on track and stop living in a mental prison whose walls are set by PC police. They delight in pouncing on trivialities while black patients are murdered by paramedics fighting a race war they're winning with the help of the PC police, who divert attention from serious to silly matters.

Popular Science writer Jennifer Abbasi discussed The saga of "Semengate" in a splendid article in which she interviewed Gordon Gallup, Jr., an evolutionary psychologist at SUNY Albany, who said that women may go through semen withdrawal. Professor Gallup thought that Semengate was “a tragic overreaction,” adding, “The point at which we begin to let a political agenda dictate what science is all about is the point when science ceases to be a viable enterprise.” Abbasi replied, “Considering how fascinating this research is—and whether or not it offends our sensibilities—I have to agree.”

So do I. It opens up intriguing avenues that might provide effective depression treatments with fewer or no side effects. In my career as a doctor, in my friends, and in members of my extended family, I've seen how depression can suck the joy out of life and not infrequently end it prematurely via suicide. Current depression treatments are often insufficiently effective but yet plagued with side effects. We need a better approach, and we need to support scientists conducting this research as well as discussing it; we don't need people dictating to others what they may and may not discuss. The Dark Ages are over, but the PC police want to usher in a new period of authoritarian repression in which they demand absolute obedience to rules they create.

On February 19^th 2012, 60 Minutes interviewed Harvard scientist Irving Kirsch, who said, “The difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people.” Pharmaceutical manufacturers cherry-pick clinical trials, suppressing the ones that show too little drug benefit or too much drug harm, while ballyhooing the more positive studies. However, with antidepressants, that effect is not much greater than placebo for most depressed people. It is not that antidepressants don't work; it's that placebos could replicate most of their effects—and obviously at less cost and with virtually no side effects.

Dr. Walter Brown, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University's Medical School, said on 60 Minutes, “The experts in the field now believe [the theory that depression is caused by a deficiency of brain serotonin] is a gross oversimplification and probably is not correct.”

We can finally put to rest claims by psychiatrists that scientific evidence supports their use of antidepressants for most depressed patients. It doesn't. In fact, there is more evidence for NOT prescribing them, but I predict this will not dampen doctor's enthusiasm for antidepressants. Why? Because they profit from the way things are now. Change it? What, are you crazy? :-)

With the effect of the drugs being so minimal, with people still suffering from depression and the side effects of antidepressants (thus giving them even more reason to be depressed!), and with doctors still largely clueless about how to best treat depression, there is clearly a need for new ways to relieve that disorder. Hence, when scientists such as Professor Gallup conduct research that might lead to a better treatment, and when clinicians such as Dr. Greenfield discuss those studies, they should be congratulated—not criticized—for doing their part to help make depression treatment safer and more effective.

References:

1. December 21, 2021: Antidepressants might be largely ineffective, study suggests
   Based on: Newer generation antidepressants and withdrawal effects: reconsidering the role of antidepressants and helping patients to stop
2. Anti-Depressants Likely Do More Harm Than Good, Study Suggests based on Primum non nocere: an evolutionary analysis of whether antidepressants do more harm than good
3. Serotonin deficiency? Study throws into question long-held belief about depression based on Mice Genetically Depleted of Brain Serotonin Do Not Display a Depression-like Behavioral Phenotype
4. The Science Behind Commonly Used Anti-Depressants Appears to Be Backwards, Researchers Say
5. Drug Trials Funded by Industry Are More Likely to Publish Favorable Results, Researchers Find
6. Bias Found in Mental Health Drug Research based on Reporting bias in industry-supported medication trials presented at the American Psychiatric Association meeting
7. Facts in Scientific Drug Literature May Not Be based on Retracted Publications in the Drug Literature
8. Psychological side-effects of anti-depressants worse than thought
   Excerpt: “Thoughts of suicide, sexual difficulties and emotional numbness as a result of anti-depressants may be more widespread than previously thought, a researcher has found.”
9. February 18, 2021: Researchers uncover new information on the effects of antidepressants: The drugs bind directly to a brain-derived neurotrophic factor receptor without help from serotonin
10. 'Dr. Drew' Was Paid by Glaxo: Radio Host Extolled Virtues of Antidepressant After Attending Events for Firm
    Comment: This isn't rare; my Hospitals mandating flu vaccines article presents many sources showing how pharmaceutical companies pay physicians to extol their drugs.

I made two very interesting sexual discoveries, both of which might offend those who think less of science than Puritanical repression. My medical school professors taught students to treat sex as openly as any other medical subject, so I categorically reject how Media Matters and their troll followers try to ridicule certain sexual topics in an attempt to score political points (the fact they'd stoop that low manifests their desperation and immaturity; people expect childish 13-year-olds to giggle about sex—but adults?).

Knowledge of the first discovery can substantially amplify sexual pleasure, which strengthens marriages and lowers the divorce rate, and could provide the missing link in making men more willing to use condoms. Hence, that information could save millions of lives and countless marriages. Should we discuss it or sweep it under the rug? Try justifying the latter without looking like a fool.

My second discovery is a dream-come-true for many men. Because it is something that is impossible according to textbook medicine, yet I found how to do it, it shows that the mainstream view on this topic is fallacious. This discovery ultimately pertains to a way to circumvent genetic switches (so to speak) that, once turned off, stay off permanently unless given the trigger I found. That knowledge might be applied to various medical problems that currently have no good solution. So, to repeat myself, should we discuss it or sweep it under the rug? Try justifying the latter without looking like a fool.

Michael Castleman (in a PsychologyToday.com article, Attention, Ladies: Semen Is An Antidepressant) noted that “risky sex is usually associated with negative self-esteem and depressed mood. Among college women, risky sex includes intercourse without condoms, so we would expect sex sans condoms to be associated with more depressive symptoms,” but that is the opposite of what was found, suggesting that semen's antidepressant effect is even stronger than what was presumed. Of course, this observational study doesn't conclusively prove that; other obvious explanations are possible. Correlation does not imply causation, but a randomized trial would violate ethical standards.

It would be an affront to justice if criminals were judged by judges no better than they were. Implicit in the right to judge is ethical and legal superiority that gives one the right to judge without evoking laughter accompanied by the question, “What gives you the right to judge me?”

If we applied a similar standard to judgments outside courtrooms, many of them would have very tenuous justification. People who can barely write intelligibly often assail others with clearly superior intelligence as “idiots,” “morons,” and other pejorative terms. Stingy people often chide others for their lack of generosity. People who won't lift a finger to help others (like many of Dr. Greenfield's critics) bombarded him even though he went out of his way to help women.

With this in mind, I wonder how many of Dr. Greenfield's critics are better than he is, and have done more for others in general and women in particular. My guess is zero, but in case I'm wrong, I'd like to hear from anyone who deems himself more illustrious than Dr. Greenfield.

People wouldn't stand for a system in which those who raped and murdered sentenced others to prison for jaywalking, so why do we tolerate equivalent pronouncements from lesser people blasting greater people? Do we really need such hot air from people filled with little else? What do they do besides contribute to global warming?

The world has billions of people and even more problems. I suggest identifying and solving as many as you can. Wouldn't that be infinitely more valuable than suggesting that a great man isn't perfect?

Since political correctness is primarily associated with the Left (the Right has its own unique brand of political correctness I'll explore in another article), one might expect that their most illustrious members would be paragons of exemplary political correctness. Let's see …

Appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, President Obama said, “It's like, it was like the Special Olympics or something” in referring to his low bowling score.

Had President George W. Bush similarly insulted the disabled, liberal activists would have tarred and feathered him, excoriating him for years afterward. However, the liberal outrage over Obama's blunder was (predictably) surprisingly mild and short-lived. ABC News wasn't happy about it, nor was Tim Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics. Rahm Emanuel, then White House Chief of Staff, also apologized to the Special Olympics head after he called a group of liberal activists “fucking retarded.”

One might think that President Obama's background, intelligence, and Ivy League education would keep him from making PC blunders, but no. I can make him appear to be a sage with a singular ability to save our nation, or I can make him seem boorish and uneducated. The best of Obama is even better than what his most ardent fans believe (since their affinity is often more reflexive than deeply analytic, which is also true of partisans on the Right favoring their political idols), but the worst of Obama falls far short of perfection. The PC police don't go on the warpath when President Obama crosses the line because his similar political ideology insulates him from being subjected to the same rigid behavioral standards they impose on others. The same is true of Matt Lauer, who called Meredith Vieira an “Indian giver.”

The Left mocked NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre after he called for armed police officers in schools, but they thought President Clinton's COPS in Schools program was just peachy! Armed guards are great for Obama's daughters, but not yours. It's called hypocrisy.

Ah yes, double standards: the foundation of every corrupt system. Double standards are rooted in bias, unfairness, and discrimination. That's not good territory to call home unless you're a dictator or wannabe dictator—which might be the ultimate aberration behind the PC movement. With better ways to achieve their laudable goals, there is no excuse for their execrable methods.

I've yet to meet a perfect person. We're all, to varying degrees, admixtures of brilliance and stupidity, enlightenment and ignorance, sensitive and caring versus insensitive and cold. Although I agree with liberals in more ways than I ever thought possible, I am stunned by the ineffective tactics they use trying to achieve their political, economic, and social goals. Their attack on Dr. Greenfield is not just evidence that they don't get it, but incontrovertible evidence that they fall far short of what liberalism is supposed to represent.

That is not just the definition of a liberal, but also the definition of a good person. The people attacking Dr. Greenfield are close to the polar opposite of that ideal, at least in regard to the intolerant, bigoted, dogmatic, authoritarian, narrow-minded, disrespectful, cold-hearted, and merciless way they expressed their hatred. Perhaps they are wonderful, bighearted folks in other ways, but they didn't show any mercy to Dr. Greenfield. Prepend “Were they?” to every clause in the above definition of liberal, and if you answer with a string of yeses … you must be kidding!

The PC and thought police want to take political correctness to absurd extremes, but by doing that, they become extremists: something they often decry as loathsome.

One of the best ways to teach is by example, but liberals miss countless opportunities to embody the wonderful characteristics that define true liberalism. I'm partly liberal, so I won't paint with a broad brush and assert that all liberals are gratuitously nasty, but many of the more visible ones on the Internet are more likely to figuratively stick a knife into someone's back than to extend a hand of friendship.

They evidently never read Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People; truculence and ridicule are nowhere in the book. Amazon.com's Joan Price said that Carnegie's principles could “win people over to your way of thinking, and change people without causing offense or arousing resentment.” It is also possible to create win-win situations in which both sides get what they want (here's an example). Great leaders could use such methods to boost our economy and unite our country, while great people within it could use such methods to help others and themselves. Our country needs less confrontation, more cooperation, and more greatness. Dr. Greenfield knows how to achieve greatness. In the game of life, Dr. Greenfield hit a home run, while people who struck out somehow feel qualified to lecture him on greatness. Go figure!

As I've proven, no one—not even prestigious Ivy League grads like President Obama or Matt Lauer, who is handsomely paid because he's a great talker—can always live up to the unrealistic standard of perfection that is increasingly demanded in our increasingly intolerant society. We expend far too much energy fighting one another, and far too little thinking up ways to help one another and help our economy. Isn't it time we did? Of course, the hair trigger for intolerance usually lacks a sincere motivation; the ultimate motivation is to keep Americans so busy fighting one another over trivial nonsense they're too busy to see how politicians are destroying our country. Divide and conquer.

Related topics

PC police thwarting a remedy for rape

Joan Rivers: Antidote to PC totalitarianism (by Ilana Mercer)

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