THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

OPINION VERSUS FACT? | 2006-01-22

One nurturing thing about comments is that they include statements I take for granted and make me take a new look at them.

A Whitakerism is analyzing a reality that is so obvious we all take it for granted.

Notice the "we" here. I would be of no use to you if I, too, had not ignored the same fact by taking it for granted.

So Joe states one of those realities I always took for granted.

Joe says,

"It's important to remember that an opinion is not a fact."

On the point he is making, Joe is perfectly right.

But a person who has spent his life in politics has repeatedly asked a question about opinion polls:

"Are they FACTUAL?"

That was a major part of the way I made my living.

But what was the "fact" I was talking about?

The "facts" I made my living largely consisted of the accurate assessment of opinion.

For me, opinion WAS fact.

"It's important to remember that an opinion is not a fact."

But look at one of my major themes in all my writings. I keep urging you to remember that your "opinion" is a fact that you shold stand up for.

Political Correctness rests on telling us that our opinions are just prejudices while the priest of PC state the real, truly objective preferences we should have.

And, of course, the fundamental tenant of our established religion is that the opinion of an expert is fact.

But that comes right back to a proper understanding of what Joe said in the first place:

"It's important to remember that an opinion is not a fact."

This was a useful intellecutal exercise for me.

But, strictly speaking, Joe should have gone through this whole rigamarole right after he said, 'It's important to remember that an opinion is not a fact. "

But we've been through that already. Joe was the one who said that I should go through the whole rigamarole when I make a flat statement like that.

But, MUCH more important, Joe was the one who said, after our discussion, that what he said originally was NOT the case.

Our mutual conclusion seems to be that I can expect Joe to go through all of this every time he makes a statement, or he can expect me to understand what he is saying in the first place.

I had not thought about it before, but saying what you think flatly and leaving all the quibbles and analysis to the other person does the other person a lot of good. If he is smart enough to be worth talking to, you do him no favor by doing all his thinking FOR him.

THIS IS IMPORTANT: BOB IS NOT SMARTER THAN GOD | 2007-06-04

C.S. Lewis said that prophets do not come among men to tell them NEW truths, but to remind them of truths they already know. I am far below a prophet, and most of what I say is basics.

If Jesus had believed that the Old Testament and the Law had all the truths needed, he could have stayed in the Temple. He did just the opposite.

Most of the Parables are warnings against depending on Authority. Considering what his audience thought of Samaritans, it is amazing that the Good Samaritan didn't get him lynched on the spot.

One of the two people Christ specifically consigned to Hell was a High Priest who, Jesus said, had followed the Law perfectly.

A lot of people seem to think that people who do the evil things I describe in the name of diversity, for example, will get away with it on Judgment Day because the Pope and all the leaders say it's all right, and they just hadn't thought of it the way I put it.

I was never afraid to die because I do not permit myself to be for anything that stinks. I know it stinks, THEN I analyze why.

I am telling myself a truth I already know.

If a preacher united two people whose children will be mixed and probably ugly because the two are "in love," he knows he is wrong.

I do not know WHY mixed-blood countries are all places children raised there will be miserable, but I know it, and so do the "Christians."

I am an experienced old bird when it comes to figuring out what people REALLY think, and I am fully aware that vanishingly few of preachers, including the fundamental ones, REALLY believe they will be judged.

When Pat Robertson said that intermarriage would reduce racial tensions, he knows he is supporting pure evil. But a lot of people think he will attain salvation anyway because he hasn't heard the Mantra. He is innocent because he hasn't heard ME.

It doesn't work that way. Jesus said over and over and over that the Law and Authority won't protect you.

If you think someone will get by Judgment Day because I have something to say that God hasn't already figured out, think again.

ELECTORAL COLLEGE OR A TRULY NATIONAL ELECTION? | 2000-11-11

One thing that the present electoral college does is to limit each state's influence on the presidential contest. That is, if a political machine in Chicago manufactures votes, the votes it influences are the property of the citizens of Illinois in the first place. So each state conducts its elections with a great deal of independence. The fight over Florida, though it affects us all, is still mostly a matter of Florida law and jurisdiction.

Because of the electoral college, there has never been a truly national election in the United States. Even the ratification of the Constitution proceeded state by state. So, while abolishing the electoral college seems like a routine step, it isn't. With a truly national election, direct control of elections would move inevitably to Washington. After all, what is done in New York would affect me as directly as much as a vote in Columbia.

Abolishing the electoral college would have been a lot harder in the past, when states actually had rights. On the upside, such abolition would soon remove much of the distinction between the Deep South and the rest of the country under the Voting Rights Act, which puts us under special Federal regulations.

The first truly national election now would not be nearly the revolutionary move it would have been just a few decades ago. But it is still a much more radical step than most people think. An intermediate step would be to keep the electoral votes assigned to each state, but get rid of the human electors, who, in a very close election like this one, could theoretically wreak havoc.

LAW: IN OTHER WORDS | nationalsalvation.net

I have pointed out to many people at many times that Political Correctness is a RELIGION, and if we attack it as a RELIGION we can destroy it.

And almost invariably the person I am talking with will say something like, "Well, it is LIKE a religion. It is a very rigid belief system."

And I say a little silent prayer, "Lord give me strength. Let me remember that this retard is trying to be sophisticated. He knows not what he does. And keep me from committing physical violence against him."

This dribbling moron, in his desperation to show he knows big words, has justified the entire Political Correctness establishment. He has completely destroyed the whole strategy I laid out.

So I take a deep, deep breath, clinch my shaking hands together and pull apart my fingers that were set to deliver a karate chop to the bridge of his nose, and ask him what the difference between "a rigid belief system" and a "religion" IS.

He never has the foggiest idea. It just sounded real smart. But he has completely missed my point.

Under the Constitution, there is nothing necessarily illegal about government establishing "a rigid belief system." There is nothing necessarily unconstitutional about the government financing a group of professors who advance "a rigid belief system."

What the Constitution specifically forbids is an established RELIGION.

If you say something is "a rigid belief system" and not a RELIGION, you have legitimized the whole professor-priesthood.

That is one hell of a price to pay for sounding sophisticated.

I did NOT say, "Political Correctness is LIKE a religion because it is a rigid belief system." I said "Political Correctness IS a religion because it is a belief system based on FAITH."

Physics is not a religion because it helps send real rockets into real space. It WORKS. Political Correctness is a religion because it doesn't WORK. It is based on FAITH. Paying professors who teach a faith is ILLEGAL.

Telling dirty jokes in class is immoral but it is not illegal. Assaulting students is ILLEGAL.

Teaching a rigid belief system at public expense is immoral. Teaching a religion at public expense is ILLEGAL.

Is there any way on earth I can get past this moron's desperate desire to sound sophisticated to make him recognize the difference between immoral and illegal?

"In Other Words" Is WRONG

The blithering idiot who is trying to be sophisticated thinks he is just stating what I said "in other words." That's a great way to miss the whole point.

My Internet radio program this week can be linked at: Townhall - The Untrained Eye is entitled, "The Silly Ideas We Live By."

They are each ideas that have caused incalculable suffering, and every one of them started as a sophisticated interpretation of a real fact.

They all sounded harmless and even idealistic when they first came out.

Long ago Americans discovered that some intellectual tools are very useful. You need to learn to read. You need to learn arithmetic. Today no one just learns a skill and stays with it the rest of his life. He must keep learning the newest techniques.

Then came the fatal words, "IN OTHER WORDS, education pays."

As a direct result of those OTHER WORDS our young people are now serfs to the professor-priesthood. A young person must waste four years of his youth in a university, then he must spend ten years paying off a backbreaking student loan.

But that is only the beginning. After he has paid off the student loan and has spent fourteen years serving the professor-priesthood, this person now in his mid-thirties can begin to think about having a family. But every child he plans to have will be another serf to the professor-priesthood.

So this person in his mid-thirties must begin to save money, not for a home or anything he or his family can use, but for tuition for each of his children, which means he can't have more than one or two. Tuition is rising astronomically and it already represents a back-breaking burden.

All this happened because of "IN OTHER WORDS" education pays.

Other Examples of "IN OTHER WORDS" That Kill

The Constitution of the United States says that this country exists to provide "We the People and OUR posterity" with the blessings of liberty.

So we hear this line every day, "IN OTHER WORDS America is all about spreading Democracy around the world."

Take a look at the casualty list in Iraq this week if you want to see what that IN OTHER WORDS has cost us.

America was taken away from the several hundred thousand Indians who were still living in the Stone Age by the wave of Indo-European invaders who had earlier conquered Europe. It is now the richest country on earth and, for all the carping we do, the freest country on earth. We destroyed Communism, which enslaved a third of the human race.

And now comes the fatal slogan, "IN OTHER WORDS America is a Nation of Immigrants."

If I have to explain to you what THAT little IN OTHER WORDS is doing to us, you belong in a retarded home.

Whitakeronline is NOT devoted to "in other words."

I consider words to be vitally important. I have used weapons and I have used words, and the words have been infinitely more important.

No war hero ever made the slightest difference in real human history. Those who used words have MADE real history.

Try to Understand The Words I Use

I do not say things so that they can be translated into other words. I work very, very hard to write and rewrite and use words to express my exact meaning. You have every right to reject my advice, but you do NOT have the right to distort it.

Ole Bob am a very, very out-of-date sort of person. He means EXACTLY what he says.

If what I say is wrong, as it often is, you have every right to CORRECT me. Being corrected upsets other people. They called it being embarrassed.

Ole Bob has been wrong too often to be embarrassed by being wrong one more time. Others call it embarrassing, I call it learning something. Good solid corrections are genuinely appreciated and you don't have to be nice about it.

But I do NOT appreciate interpretations. If YOU believe something, put it in YOUR name. Do NOT say it is what I said unless you are quoting me in full.

As for quoting me in full, the easiest thing in the world is to get permission from me for reprints. You can't reprint my whole book because a lot of other people have put a lot of effort into it. But even when it comes to that, I am certain that, if you could get more copies out than we can, my team would not only be glad to have you do it, they would help you do it, all free of charge as usual.

My team would make just about any personal sacrifice to get a million copies of my book out there and READ. That fact makes me feel wonderful. It makes me feel great that my words, my own words, are that important to such admirable people. It keeps me going.

I spent two years and rewrote that little book sixteen times. "Rewrote" not "edited" it. I spent thousands of dollars on it.

All that work and a lifetime of experience produced a piece of work a handful of great people are willing to make enormous and unpaid effort to promote.

But remember that all that dedication is to MY words. It is NOT to IN OTHER WORDS.

The geniuses who wrote a far shorter and more important document, the United States Constitution, fought over every single word in it. They did NOT write it so that a bunch of Federal judges could say IN OTHER WORDS and substitute their own opinions for the Constitution.

What the founding fathers said was good enough.

I feel that what I say, over and over and over and over and over and over, things like "Political Correctness IS a religion" is exactly what you need to hear.You are free to agree with me or disagree with my words. But you have no right to TWIST them.