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Kevin Pezzi, MD

I developed technology to instantly
stop school shooters and other criminals,
such as rapists, robbers, home invaders,
and shoplifters. I also created ways to block
airborne germ transmission. Read more >

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

FDA raid on raw milk: Rawesome food club

Imagine if the young daughter of one of the officers involved in this raid asked him about his workday:

DAUGHTER: What did you do today, Daddy?

FATHER: We went on a raid.

DAUGHTER: Cool! Who did you go after? Drug dealers?

FATHER: No.

DAUGHTER: Bank robbers?

FATHER: No.

DAUGHTER: A child pornography ring?

FATHER: No.

DAUGHTER: Kidnappers?

FATHER: No.

DAUGHTER: The Mafia?

FATHER: No. We drew our guns, pointed them menacingly around the room, and . . .

DAUGHTER: Arrested some murderers?

FATHER: Uh, no.

DAUGHTER: Then who did you go after?

FATHER: Some people who made cheese from raw milk.

DAUGHTER: Mmmm, sounds tasty! Did you bring some home with you?

FATHER: No, we ordered them to destroy it.

DAUGHTER: (sarcastically) Oh, great!

FATHER: (oblivious to the obvious sarcasm) So you're proud of me?

DAUGHTER: No, I am embarrassed by you! Some kids at school say that you and the FDA agents you work with are just goons.

FATHER: (perplexed) Goons?

DAUGHTER: Yes, stupid goons.

FATHER: (puzzled) Stupid goons?

DAUGHTER: Yes. How can anyone properly enforce the law if he or she is ignorant of it?

FATHER: (indignantly) I know the law, young lady!

DAUGHTER: Then you know that the Constitution is the ultimate law of the land, and that it and the Declaration of Independence are the foundation for all other laws.

FATHER: Yes, I know that.

DAUGHTER: Then think of one word that aptly summarizes them.

FATHER: Big government!

DAUGHTER: No, that's two words. Did you attend the same school as Joe Biden, who said that “jobs” is a three-letter word?

FATHER: Don't be a smart aleck!

DAUGHTER: Then answer my question: one word that aptly summarizes the Constitution and Declaration of Independence is . . .

FATHER: Control!

DAUGHTER: No, Daddy, it's FREEDOM!

FATHER: Citizens are too dumb to handle freedom. They need us to tell them what to do and run their lives!

DAUGHTER: Oh, so you and the nitwits you work with are so much smarter than the citizens who pay you to protect them.

FATHER: Yes, of course we're smarter. We're the elite.

DAUGHTER: Well, if you are so smart, how can you read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and conclude from them the polar opposite of what our Founding Fathers intended? The take-home message is FREEDOM, not CONTROL. Sheesh! I'll ask Mom to schedule an appointment with the doctor so he can evaluate you for incipient dementia.

FATHER: (puzzled, trying to figure out what incipient means) Uh . . .

DAUGHTER: And if your group of elite control freaks are so intelligent, why didn't Obama know how many states we have?

FATHER: You sayin' he was wrong when he said we have 57 or 58 states?

DAUGHTER: Duh!

FATHER: Well, he was close. Only 7 or 8 off.

DAUGHTER: Daddy! For a politician to think that we have 57 or 58 states is like a doctor thinking people have 11 or 12 fingers!

FATHER: Um, ah, uh-uh-uh . . .

DAUGHTER: Stop stuttering! You sound like Obama without a teleprompter! He could have used one the day he spoke about P/E ratios, revealing he didn't know this basic Economics 101 fact.

FATHER: He didn't know that?

DAUGHTER: Even folks who received a D– in Economics know that P/E ratios refer to price-to-earnings ratios, not profit and earnings ratios! This degree of ignorance is like a doctor not knowing what penicillin is, or a builder not knowing what a 2x4 is—it's simply unfathomable! You and other elitists should be wearing dunce caps while attending summer school instead of living in a fantasy world in which your imagined superiority gives you the right to trample the Constitutional rights of citizens, most of whom could leave you and Barack in the dust in terms of having enough brainpower to correctly interpret the Constitution. If you can't understand the Constitution, and you're thuggish enough to pat yourself on the back for terrorizing people who make cheese, then you're clearly in need of adult supervision.

FATHER: But they made cheese from raw milk!

DAUGHTER: So? Did they force people to buy it? Shove it down the throats of unsuspecting people?

FATHER: Uh, no.

DAUGHTER: Then unless the flunkies you hang around with have abrogated the Constitution, then people should have the freedom to decide for themselves if they wish to consume ordinary cheese or that made from raw milk. There aren't enough police officers to go after all the real criminals, and you're wasting time terrorizing people who make cheese from raw milk? Do you have rocks in your brain, Daddy? If you want people to respect you, exhibit some common sense and stop acting like a buffoon with more firepower than brainpower! I want to be proud of you, Daddy, and I want to tell the kids in school they're wrong when they call you a goon, but I can't when I agree with them. Your behavior is despicable! You belong in Nazi Germany, not the United States of America.

FATHER: You have no right to say that! I'm your father!

DAUGHTER: Then if age confers the right to judge, then you should listen to your father. Grandpa says he fought in World War II for freedom. He says he was proud to risk his life for the chance to kill thugs who wanted to control others. Like you. You may not wear a Nazi uniform, but you think like a Nazi and act like a Nazi. You know what they say about how if the shoe fits, wear it?

FATHER: Yes.

DAUGHTER: Then put on your jackboots, thug.

Notes:

The views expressed on this page may or may not reflect my current opinions, nor do they necessarily represent my past ones. After reading a slice of what I wrote in my various websites and books, you may conclude that I am a liberal Democrat or a conservative Republican. Wrong; there is a better alternative. Just as the primary benefit from debate classes results when students present and defend opinions contrary to their own, I use a similar strategy as a creative writing tool to expand my brainpower—and yours. Mystified? Stay tuned for an explanation. PS: The wheels in your head are already turning a bit faster, aren't they?

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reference: Imagining dialogue can boost critical thinking: Excerpt: “Examining an issue as a debate or dialogue between two sides helps people apply deeper, more sophisticated reasoning …”

Kevin Pezzi, MD

FDA raid on raw milk: Rawesome food club

Notes:

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