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Kevin Pezzi, MD

I developed technology to instantly
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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

Shattering the myth that Wall Street is filled with Republicans

An excerpt from Stossel on Fox Business 10-15-2010:

JOHN STOSSEL: We think the fat cats are in the pocket of the Republicans.

CHARLES GASPARINO: Do you really believe that?

STOSSEL: Well, no, because I read much of your book . . .

GASPARINO: Here's the bottom line. I've been covering the sort of confluence between Wall Street and big business and government for a long time, and I've noticed something very strange. The popular media myth is that Wall Street is filled and big businesses are basically filled with all these wonderful capitalists and free marketeers, when in reality big business and the big Wall Street firms—most of the guys who run these businesses, or many of them, are progressives, and they love big government, and they feast off of big government. Big government is good for big business; it's good for big Wall Street.

STOSSEL: Good for their big business. They have the connections.

GASPARINO: Absolutely. Look at the spoils of Obamanomics, and this is what I talk about in Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street. What did Wall Street get? Well, Wall Street got the bailouts—that began under Bush, but continued through the Obama administration. You know, all those guarantees on debts, all that buying of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities that were held by the firms increased the prices that was helping their balance sheet. Goldman Sachs is the most profitable company in America right now, not because it produces anything that's so good, not because it helps bring a lot of capital … They borrow at zero, because the Fed has interest rates at zero and because they are deemed too big to fail, so they can borrow at zero, and then they buy a Treasury bond or mortgage-backed security and they pocket the difference. That's their business model. And that business model is predicated on government guarantees—there's nothing else there. These are not capitalist institutions.

Correct. They are leeches living off the sweat of my brow, and yours, and Obama—who professes to hate the fats cats—is helping them continue to suck our blood. That's what leeches do.

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, in 2010 Democrats received 53% ($482 million) of the $911 million donated to all congressional candidates and political parties from corporate PACs or people who work for corporations. This is especially notable considering the fact that Democrats received over half the contributions at a time when most voters concluded that Democrats are digging our national grave. I suspect that corporate donations would be even more lopsided in favor of Democrats if only big corporations were included, since most small business owners are as fond of Democrats as chickens are of Colonel Sanders.

According to Opensecrets.org and other sources, Democrat Harry Reid received huge campaign donations from big corporations while Sharron Angle, her Republican challenger, obtained most of her money in the form of small donations from small businesses and organizations, and average citizens. Who funds Harry Reid? Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Comcast, and AT&T.

It's a big mistake to listen to what politicians say, not what they do. Whether Republican or Democrat, what they generally do is tell us what we want to hear while stabbing us in the back.

Notes:

Why Obama Lacks Political Will to Crackdown on Wall Street

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

Shattering the myth that Wall Street is filled with Republicans

Notes:

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