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Kevin Pezzi, MD

I developed technology to instantly
stop school shooters and other criminals,
such as rapists, robbers, home invaders,
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Iconoclastic views on economics, politics, technology, science, and life.

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

Why you should NOT feel sorry for UAW workers

If you're feeling sorry for UAW workers, whose incomes will likely soon plummet, you should read Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line, written by Ben Hamper, a former autoworker and the ex-husband of my sister-in-law. That erstwhile best-seller will likely cause your sympathy to quickly evaporate by revealing a pathetic work ethic and an alarming lack of conscientiousness on the part of autoworkers. They dug their own graves by demanding too much from GM, Ford, and Chrysler, and by screwing their employers via a variety of scams and unethical practices that ultimately weakened the automakers. If the UAW brass had any brains — and apparently they do not — they would have had a man-to-man talk with their members years ago, saying something along the lines of:

“GM, Ford, and Chrysler aren't the enemy. Instead of endlessly bellyaching about management, you should thank your lucky stars that a person like you, who probably has never been to college and may have slept through high school, can earn more in wages and benefits than some doctors [here's proof]. So, men, let's not make a habit of calling in sick on Mondays and Fridays, drinking on the job, or using drugs to get high. You can't build high-quality cars when you're stoned. You also can't build high-quality cars when you're not at work. Yes, we know about the scam some of you are pulling: Having a co-worker punch your time card for you and rush to do both his job and yours so you can go home four hours early.

Men, the real enemy isn't your employer; it's the foreign automakers who are doing everything they can to make customers buy their cars, instead of ours. By stealing our customers, they're stealing our jobs. And, frankly, many of you are doing a great job of helping them achieve their goals! So stop whining about management. Leave the booze and drugs at home — or better yet, give them up. Many of the diseases you have are traceable to your diet, exercise, penchant for tobacco, and other lifestyle choices. Those diseases aren't just killing you, they're killing us, because they're costing us billions of dollars in excess healthcare premiums that force your employer to increase car prices, thereby making them less competitive. The best job security isn't using our power to force your employer to knuckle under to our demands at the bargaining table; the best job security is building better cars at lower cost so customers want to buy our cars, not those of our competitors. Without customers, we can't force your employer to do anything except go out of business or go bankrupt, so we cannot survive and prosper by undermining your employer.

Basically, we can't continue doing what we've been doing. If you don't agree, walk out the door and don't come back. If you want to drag us down with you, you don't deserve to be here. The rest of us will get to work and do our best to put foreign automakers out of work by beating them in the marketplace. There's only one way to win, and that's it, and that's all, men.”

Update September 2010: We bailed out Chrysler, but some of their workers are still boozing it up during workdays. I saw the same thing in the ER, treating autoworkers with blood alcohol levels over three times the legal limit of intoxication.

I don't intend to imply that all autoworkers are lazy, mean, or have easy jobs. One of my friends, now an eye doctor, worked in the Ford Wixom plant, which he said was a hot (120° F) hellhole. A relative, now retired, was an exemplary worker.

Kevin Pezzi, MD

Why you should NOT feel sorry for UAW workers

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