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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

Senator Chuck Schumer lashes out at a citizen who disagrees with him

Have you heard how politicians talk to real Americans when the camera isn't around? A woman—Karla—called the Mark Levin Show on November 17, 2008 to relate what Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said to her in LaGuardia Airport when she voiced her opposition to reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine.

Like many pieces of legislation, its name is misleading; it should be called the Unfairness Doctrine, because Democrats hope to use it to suppress criticism of them on conservative talk radio programs. Predictably, Democrats are not opposed to free speech when the liberal mainstream media bashes conservatives and Republicans. It's OK for liberals to hang Sarah Palin in effigy, or to talk about raping her, or to suggest that her husband is sleeping with their daughters, or to fabricate countless lies and deliberate distortions. All of that and much more is fine with them, but when a conservative talk radio host lambastes a liberal Democrat … heavens no! We can't have any criticism of liberals!

MARK LEVIN: Let's go to Karla, Brooklyn, New York, the great WABC. How are you, Karla?

KARLA: Hi! I am so glad to talk to you. I'm also kind of nervous because I don't want to end up like Joe The Plumber.

After Joe The Plumber asked Barack Obama a question during the 2008 Presidential campaign, multiple Democratic state government officials in Ohio (Joe's home state) investigated him, and the liberal mainstream media immediately launched a massive investigation to dig for any dirt they could find to discredit him, shut him up, and to discourage other citizens from challenging Democratic candidates.

KARLA: I had an, let's just say an altercation with Charlie Schumer in the airport at LaGuardia on Saturday night that was pretty extensive and . . .

LEVIN: Now wait a minute. By altercation, you mean a discussion?

KARLA: Well, yeah. A heated discussion . . .

LEVIN: Yes.

KARLA: … about the Fairness Doctrine. I was deplaning; he was ahead of me. There was a fawning Democrat chick who came over to him and was like all over him. And I had heard what he had said on [unintelligible; possibly “I think it was”] Fox News on Election Day. I had heard his comments about talk radio and about the Fairness Doctrine, which really repulsed me. So, I saw him there, his big smile on his face, and I just said to him, “Don't you dare try to take my talk radio away from me.” And he said to me, “I'm not trying to take your talk radio away from you, but we can't allow people to be nasty and rude and say things that aren't true.” I said, “Are you kidding me?” I said, “That's what our democracy is about.” I said, “Our democracy is messy.” I said, “Our democracy is about being able to be nasty and rude and sarcastic and wrong when we want, and say opinions that may be wrong when we want. That's what makes us different than Europe. And he just started out lashing at me. He told me how ignorant I was, and that they were not going to . . .

LEVIN: Wait a minute, wait a minute — so in other words, he was shrill and rude and vile.

KARLA: Well, he was obnoxious and shrill and it was attacking my intelligence and my IQ and . . .

LEVIN: Gee whiz!

KARLA: … telling me I was dumb. I told him that there was a very good country that believed in his philosophy: it was called Red China, and he sounded like he was talking right out of Mao's Red Book, and that was not what our country was about, and that our democracy was unique in that we allowed our discourse to be messy, and that we allowed our discourse to be wrong when it's wrong. And that's the nature of democracy.

LEVIN: Let me tell you something. You're a patriot. I wish more people would engage like you, politely but firmly, confronting the left. And you're not stupid; he's a moron. And let me tell you, Karla, what's really upsetting Schumer. You know what it is, Karla?

KARLA: No.

LEVIN: Me. It's me because he doesn't like my mocking him. I know it gets under his skin because he thinks he's greater and better than the rest of us. That's why I mock all of them: to knock them down two or three notches. But when he says “shrill,” he's talking about me, because he doesn't like me, 'cause I'm in his face, because I've challenged him, because I've urged him to come on this show, because I know he's a coward, but he's a menace. He's a menace to this country; he's a menace to this society; he's a menace to the judiciary. I think he should call a hearing. I think he should invite me and a couple of the others [conservative talk radio hosts]. We'll come up there. I'd be more than happy to testify under oath — assuming, of course, that he would swear in, too, so he could be punished under penalty of perjury. [Directing his speech to Schumer:] I'd be more than happy to do that, Schmuckey. I'd be more than happy to educate you about the First Amendment, political speech, and if you don't like it, it's none of your damn business. I'd be happy to educate you, Schmuckey. What do you think of that, you dope? And Karla, your IQ is twice of his, so your IQ is about 140.

KARLA: Well, I told him, I will fight to the death for my talk radio, and for anyone else to be obnoxious, to be as loud and nasty as they want, because . . .

LEVIN: But is he not the most obnoxious member of the Senate?

KARLA: Of course he is. I said, "But the point of our democracy is that we don't censor our tones; we don't control our tones."

LEVIN: Well, of course you're right, and you're extremely intelligent, but he wants to do by brute government force what the Constitution doesn't allow him to do. You see, the Founding Fathers had dealt with people like Chuck Schumer. They dealt with people who would punish people who dared to say things that they didn't believe in. They tried to squelch dissent; they tried to squelch free speech. And that's why when they passed the Bill of Rights, the very first one included the right to free speech. And they would be appalled by Chuck Schumer, but Chuck Schumer doesn't give a damn. He's a power-hungry menace! Thank you, Karla, God bless you, and good job! You take care. Yup, he really is … .

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

Senator Chuck Schumer lashes out at a citizen who disagrees with him

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