Intellectual Cowardice.

We all know there are cowards on the Battlefield.  Men (and now women) who give into panic, selfishness or sometimes simple greed, to leave their jobs, or avoid the danger (or responsibility) of their profession.  We have seen, in recent years a small smattering of such men that have, like as in Vietnam, run, and gone up to Canada.  We know of these men because the Liberal Left, and aging hippies hold them up as paragons of heroic virtue, but really most of us would have no clue who these people were otherwise, nor would we really like them much.  Indeed CNN was all about  Abdo Nasser until he got caught trying to bomb Ft Hood.

Now you can make all the arguments you want, the point is that before he went AWOL, he had Kiddy porn on his computer and refused to deploy.  He had lots of Anti-war folks supporting him, and rooting for him, then he gets caught trying to throw a Jihad on our asses.  Heaven forbid we should ever look deeper into that.  Indeed apparently Major Nadal Hassan, who young Abdo was trying to emulate wasn't really on a Jihad, he was just committing "Workplace Violence".  It makes one wonder when there IS a reason to question Muslims about the extreme violence.   

There is such a thing as Intellectual Cowardice.  It is when a person faced with Facts, Experience, and Logic, refuses to admit they are wrong.  This can be anything from Communists, to the FLDS,  when you ignore things that tell you you're failing miserably, or that your whole philosophical viewpoint is leading you to ruin, then you are a coward.  Time and again we are always given clear indication of when things just won't  work and we tend to ignore them.   

This is not limited to simply Economic or Cultural matters.  For instance there are a ton of people who believe very firmly that we have never been to the Moon, or that 9/11 was an inside job.  Such people will point to minutiae, and totally ignore the more obvious and glaring facts.  One person said that there was a C-130 in the area of the pentagon when it was hit, and posited that a cruise missile was shoved out the back.  Never mind that you literally can't launch a cruise missile that way.  Or saying "why aren't there holes where the wings went in" or perhaps "why aren't there more pieces of the plane" which would make sense, unless you counted for the fact the aluminum, is rather fragile, and indeed flammable.  Don't believe me, take a soda can, throw it into a fire, wait ten minuets and then try to fish it out.  Its like paper.  I could talk about the force involved when flight 93 barreled into the ground at almost 600 MPH, but that would be beating a dead horse.  

This cowardice is perhaps the worst kind, because it is a cowardice that will often lead others astray.  You can have all sorts of great arguments for or against something, but in the end your efforts will be doomed to failure if you are not prepared to admit when you're wrong.

Modern Academia is perhaps the worst offender.  How many young minds are filled with all sorts of thoughts and philosophies that their professors espouse?  Being in College I see it all the time.  Young eager impressionable minds given all sorts of bunkas, about any number of subjects.  One teacher I had even tried to sell me on the idea of a centrally planned economy.  I haven't really bothered to debate them, because my grade depends on their good will.  Pissing them off tends to be costly to my continued success in classes.


I think its fitting to leave you with this thought.  It comes from an EO NCO for my Brigade in Hawaii.  "Challenge your perceptions or they'll challenge you".  Sound advise, and one that I think Americans have failed to do for too long.