That the U.S. became a democracy for the first time in 1965. What! you say. The breaking point is whether you can say any nation (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
I’m struggling with something
08/06/2018 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsI’ve started reading Lies My Teacher Told Me. I’ve experienced a perspective shift. Others, according to the preface to the book, experienced the same sort (Continue Reading)
Magnum Opus in one file
08/06/2018 Pat Barrett 3 CommentsMagnum Opus 2018update April 7, 2016 The real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust This (Continue Reading)
Why Didn’t the American colonists pay the f**** tariff?
05/12/2018 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsChris Hayes writes about how the common slogan regarding police violence against Blacks is, “Why don’t they just do what the cop says?” The tariff (Continue Reading)
To post in every courthouse and school room in the country
04/10/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentFrom Steve Schmidt, the McCain-Palin campaign chairman, on what it means to be a fidelitist (new word for me). [on the MSNBC show The Eleventh (Continue Reading)
Letter to a friend re the Magnum Opus and unbroken transmission
03/22/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentAnyway, I wanted to force on you some more stuff I’ve come across recently which supports the thesis of my Magnum Opus, which is that (Continue Reading)
Whence gun clubs?
03/13/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn Max Boot’s Invisible Armies, pp. 224-5, he states that once the first KKK was disbanded, the “work” was kept up by gun clubs founded (Continue Reading)
Is This Cherry-picking?
12/17/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhen you develop a grand theory, you like to find supporting evidence. The trick is to avoid looking ONLY at items that support your (Continue Reading)
Brief follow-up to Weiher’s notion that facts derive from world view
10/24/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentMichael Gerson wrote in the WaPo today, Oct. 24, 2017: “But here is the cost. When there is no objective source of truth — no (Continue Reading)
Am I doing this right?
06/11/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy Magnum Opus hung on one thread (not ‘by’ one thread): that our institutions are based on the color line and my challenge to anyone (Continue Reading)
A petty aside
03/17/2017 Pat Barrett 8 CommentsJust an aside and a petty one at that: over a year ago I was derided for suggesting that some of our problems in education (Continue Reading)
Final final to the grouplet
12/06/2016 Pat Barrett Add Comment“People that say that facts are facts — they’re not really facts . . . there’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts. And so Mr. Trump’s (Continue Reading)
Last gasp to the grouplet re Magnum Opus
09/16/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentJim wrote this summer: “For me it [world view]is a means to help understand how and why others come to conclusions different from what another (Continue Reading)
ULTIMUS CURRUS MAGNI OPERIS (the caboose) aka SIF (stuff I forgot)
05/27/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentMO follow up. This adds in some items pulled from the Magnum Opus, from reading, and from columns and articles. I thought they would be (Continue Reading)
Racial profiling as a way of life
05/27/2016 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsJim has raised the possibility that perhaps my wife is consumed by issues of race. If you got to know her, you might see her (Continue Reading)
What is and is not exceptional about America
05/27/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentRecently as part of the exchange which resulted in the Magnum Opus posted May 7 of this year one of the participants asked me what (Continue Reading)
Where to start with the Magnum Opus (cum magno opere)
05/07/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentNot being real bright, I posted the first segment of the Magnum Opus first, forgetting that in the string of segments, it would appear last. (Continue Reading)
Magnum Opus Summary
05/07/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentSUMMARY There is nothing in what I have written that will change anyone’s mind about Black people. about poverty, or about our problems in education. (Continue Reading)
Magnum Opus Miscellanea
05/07/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentMiscellanea Courage – few Republicans have had the courage to resist the din beginning to overpower the dog whistles. John McCain was one when he (Continue Reading)
Magnum Opus Parvum Opus
05/07/2016 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsParvum Opus MO So the elites will maintain Christmas, stall the homosexual agenda, make sure the American Flag and the Ten Commandments hang in every (Continue Reading)
Magnum Opus What Conservatives Think
05/07/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhat Conservatives Think xxiii The Portable Conservative Reader, Russell Kirk ed. & author of introduction:: “Thus an American political conservative , at least as the (Continue Reading)
Magnum Opus Another POV
05/07/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentANOTHER POV MO Here I tread carefully because I must not conflate what Jim has said with others’ views, even though the others may appear, (Continue Reading)
Magnum Opus My POV
05/07/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy POV Numerous times in our exchange, Jim has asked me to state my world view, my perspective, and other words that convey one’s point (Continue Reading)