Are Duty and Skepticism Contrary Constructs?

 

By Rich Kozlovich

Recently there was an article that appeared dealing with the problem of duty and skepticism.  One commenter stated:

Duty and skepticism are contrary constructs. Duty eschews choice in favor of obedience. Skepticism may be present, but questioning is not allowed in spite of misgivings. Skepticism without questioning and the freedom to follow logic is of no value. Duty is a commandment; skepticism is a suggestion. A free people embraces skepticism and eschews duty. A free people chooses, a duty-bound people obeys.

I thought that was a truly interesting statement, because both duty and skepticism are admirable qualities, yet presented as being in opposition to each other, and to a large extent that's true, on the surface.  I saw this as a issue of  oversimplification, and of definition!  My view was, in spite of the seemingly contradictory juxtaposition they represent, they can harmonize.  

 

One of my personal heroes was Col. John Boyd, and he once said (and there have been variations of this) "Ask for my loyalty, I’ll give you my honesty. Ask for my honesty, you’ll have my loyalty."

He believed in duty so strongly he challenged the generals unendingly. His duty wasn't to chair bound self serving generals, it was to the nation.    So, let me tell you about Col. John Boyd!  He believed it was his duty to be skeptical as being true to the oath he took,  but it was based on a foundation of facts.  Facts the generals attempted to thwart with court martials.   They failed, but he never wore stars on his shoulders.  

The stars fell on those who where part of what was called Boyd's Acolytes.  Those officers who were part of his circle, and believed in his views, only I must believe they were more political in expressing them.  But it always takes one person who's willing to be the rock in the current, to stand and say, "you're all wrong, and I'm going to tell you why", and then willingly suffer the slings and arrows of adversity, and ultimately be the one sacrificed in order for others to carry the torch. 

The motto of science is supposedly "de omnibus dubitandum" (everything is to be questioned), but since they've abandoned it in favor of "grant money is my holy grail!"  I've claimed it as my own personal motto.  A philosophy of skepticism, and duty, which in combination is at the heart of truth and justice.

In Life There's Often A Role Call

By Rich Kozlovich

One of my personal heroes is Col. John Boyd:

Known as "Forty-Second" Boyd......defeating every opponent in aerial combat at the Air Force's premier dog-fighting academy in two-thirds of a minute.........however this doesn’t demonstrate the “long and often painful saga of a man who, as a full colonel, went toe to toe, time after time, with a phalanx of two-and three-star generals for the good of the country, winning most of his battles and surviving long enough to help provide secretary of defense Richard Cheney the ideas needed for swift and decisive victory in the Persian Gulf War....... "defined by the courts-martial and investigations".......... Boyd's intellectual achievements were matched by his relentless guerrilla warfare against hidebound "careerists" then running the Air Force……

We'll come back to Col. Boyd as this article is predicated on his vision of real leadership, courage, and the commitment to doing what's right. Let's start with some of the things I've observed over the course of my life.  

• Patterns of life keep repeating over and over again.
• People will always be people.
• People really aren't as complicated as they think they are.
• You have to see the patterns but if we never read a history book we don't even know there are patterns. . 
• People will act in their own best interests, unless they don't because they're clueless, and then act in the best interests of those who wish to take advantage of them.
  

I think the speech Abraham Lincoln gave in 1838, in what's known as the Lyceum Address, which was delivered to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, is an example of historical patterns repeating.  Not exactly, but in principle.

This address was intended to make Americans aware the real threat to Americanism isn't from without, but from within.  In modern times, that's more true than ever, only the threat from without is now very real also, and it's insidious, it's mendacious, and that threat uses our own values against us with more than enough American fools supporting the effort to destroy America.  Lincoln says:

Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.  

While in Lincoln's era the bands of violent rabble involved slavery issues, that doesn't change the value of his warning about radicals and the violence they perpetrate to gain their goals. He goes on 

..........whenever the vicious portion of [our] population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing-presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend upon it, this government cannot last. 

He notes these bands become alienated from society by the actions, but never in his life did Lincoln think violent thugs such as these, like Antifa, BLM, and the OWS crowd would be supported by government, funded by government, promoted by government and protected by government, and never could he have dreamt the government would be working in harmony with them to destroy the government.  But none the less, the warning as to what this does to a society is valid. 

Whether it's reparations, or any of the other outrageous issues they're promoting, there will be no harmony, and there will be no end to the voracious demands they'll make until America no longer exists. With the left, there can be no peace, it's war, and it's a war they intend to win because of their corrupt and contentious desire for uncontrolled power.  Power so overwhelming their evil can no longer be contested.  Then there will be no contentions, because they will do what all leftists do.  Imprison or execute any who dare to call what they do criminal. 

These violent destructive leftists are following a secular, neo-pagan religion that tells them they are the best and the brightest, they don't have to follow the laws of the land and in fact, it's their duty to ignore and destroy those laws, along with the culture that created them.  Lincoln goes on to explain that when such ones spring up amongst us it's imperative for:

...........the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate [their] designs.........[and to] cultivate a "political religion" that emphasizes "reverence for the laws" and puts reliance on "reason—cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason."

If  American society cannot recognize that "Truth, Justice and the American Way", is now and has been for all our warts and scars, the finest example of what man is capable of accomplishing, then all is lost.   

We're at that proverbial fork in the road.  Col. John Boyd gave a speech to the graduating class  saying:

One day you will come to a fork in the road. And you're going to have to make a decision about what direction you want to go.......... If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments." 

Then Boyd raised the other hand and pointed another direction. "Or you can go that way and you can do something — something for your country........ If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference.

"He paused and stared. "To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?"

We're now in that fork in the road, and we have two options. 

Option One:  America never offered perfection. America offers the most acceptable imperfection, and history shows that imperfect state delivered more people out of poverty, misery, and suffering than any system in world history. Believing humanity has God given rights to free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to defend their families and the nation, none of which can be taken away by the government as these rights were not bestowed on America by the government, but was an endowment from God. 

Option Two: The left is a secular neo-pagan religion that demands perfection, and claims to be able to deliver perfection, but history shows that's a blatant falsehood.  They wish to fully destroy freedom of speech, Christianity, the Constitution, and a citizenry that's armed and prepared to defend their freedoms, because the state is God.  Since the French Revolution 230 years ago the left has never done anything except deliver misery, squalor, disease, tyranny, and early death.  Mass imperfection to the nth degree.

Whether it is in the government, military, academia or business this is something we need to learn, repeat, retain and practice:

"To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?" - Col. John Boyd

Which way will you go?  As for me, I like the "Most Acceptable Imperfection" option. 

 

 

To Be or To Do, Which Way Will You Go? End Joint Membership Now!

By Rich Kozlovich 

As most of you know I left the OPMA because I couldn't resign from NPMA due to joint membership.  I can tell you from conversations, that discontent isn't isolated.  While others have expressed the same discontent with NPMA as I, they've chosen to remain within OPMA,  always hoping for the best, and trying to see the benefits offered, and I can understand that.

Of course the question everyone should be asking is: Would I act differently if I was still active, in the leadership and not retired?  No, I wouldn't, and those who know me best don't doubt that!   While I intended to do a piece on this later this year, this article has been inspired by a post by Peter D'Abrosca, Ohio Attorney General Silent After Texas, Others Leave NAAG, appearing in the Ohio Star discussing a letter addressed to Iowa Attorney General Thomas Miller (D), the president of NAAG.

After the top attorneys in Texas, Montana and Missouri announced that they would be leaving the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), Ohio appears poised to remain part of the group.  “The attorneys general of Texas, Missouri and Montana have decided to withdraw our states’ membership from NAAG,” said a letter penned by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R)..........

The article goes on to show how they've approached the leadership about "the Association’s leftward shift over the past half-decade has been intolerable. Indeed, this liberal bent has fundamentally undermined NAAG’s role as a ‘nonpartisan national forum’ that ‘provides a community … to collaboratively address’ important issues,” the letter said. “We can no longer spend our taxpayers’ money to sustain our membership with NAAG under these circumstances.” 

All of which accomplished nothing.  What conclusion did they arrive at?  It was never going to be fixed and they ended their relationship with their national association. 

The article goes on to note Ohio and 18 other states almost immediately ended their relationship with the National School Boards Association because of their position that parents who were exercising their Constitutional rights protesting what their school boards were up to were domestic terrorists, and wanted to sic the FBI on them.   

Both associations hold values antithetical to the values of many of their members, and quite frankly, to the nation's values. 

So, what's this have to do with NPMA?  Below is information I've published in the past. It's nothing new and shocking, but it is the truth, and it needs to be taken seriously.

In my years I have seen our industry go from being ardent defenders of pesticides universally, to a substantial number who are almost as anti-pesticide in their approach as anyone from the Sierra Club or the NRDC, especially with their embrace of "green" pest control, and IPM.  I find this especially true with those holding advanced degrees in our industry, any or all of whom I'm still willing to publicly debate, irrespective of position or education. 

Over they years the NPMA did some excellent work for our industry, and they should be commended for it, but having done something right doesn't give anyone a pass on the rest of life.   Over the years I've yet to see them take a truly heroic stand against leftist green positions.  School Environmental Protection Act?  They supported it.  Our members went to Legislative day and told our representatives Ohio did not. If Ohio could stand up against this, why couldn't NPMA? 

The EPA spent untold millions promoting a structural pest control system that doesn’t exist.  IPM!  In point of fact there is no such thing as IPM in structural pest control. (Please see The Pillars of IPM.)  NPMA embraced it. 

When the EPA instituted regulations to impose restrictions on the use of pyrethrins and pyrethroids based on dubious conclusions, industry played into this.    

Perhaps I missed it, but as far as I can tell they've been silent on repealing the Food Quality Protection Act, and some even claimed it was a good law.  But time is the great leveler of truth.

This law was originally intended to be a pro-pesticide bill fixing the Delaney Clause, the foolishness 1958 Amendment of the of the 1937 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.  An amendment that unscientifically declared if something tested carcinogenic at any level, it was carcinogenic at every level.  But the EPA turned this into one of the most corrupt anti-pesiticde laws since the EPA banned DDT.   As a result, we lost Ficam and Dursban, (carmabates and organophosphates) because of EPA's irrational and radical changes regarding risk and unending testing.   

Neither were banned in spite of what you may read. The manufacturers pulled their registration for structural applications.  There was very little argument, and when Dow decided not to fight it the other companies manufacturing chlorpyrifos gave up. Chlorpyrifos: A Hostage of the Secret Science Rule?   Then there was the EPA's unscientific demands regarding endocrine distuptors. 

It has seemed to me that over the decades the NPMA has far too willingly embraced a philosophy of appeasement with the neo-pagan secular psuedo-religous movements of the left.

Then there was the Butterfield Bill, as I outlined in my article, The Butterfield Bill: Activity as a Substitute for Accomplishment, Part II, which NPMA wanted us all to support.  Why?  I read it, and outlined to the leadership what was wrong with it.  I was told I needed to see the positive aspects of that bill.  I asked - what were they?  I didn't get an answer.

Well, it didn't pass, and if it had, it wouldn't have done anything to relieve the plague of bed bugs in America.  If passed it would have been an expensive waste, and an ineffectual imposition on our industry and the public.  In short, more government, less results.  And we were supporting this why? 

Why? That’s the question I kept asking over the years, and I've never  gotten a satisfactory answers.  I've gotten a lot of logical fallacies and obfuscation, none of which was satisfactory. 

Over the years the rates of cancer have consistently dropped, and yet we still hear the irrational – and unscientific – mantra that pesticides cause cancer. If you were to take a plastic overlay of our modern demographic and put it over the demographics of those living in 1914 and those living in 2014 you would notice two very distinct differences. Very few people smoked and very few people lived past 65, the two major areas of cancer related deaths. The decrease I spoke of would be even more dramatic if we reduced the demographic of smokers and the aged from our modern demographic chart.

Now that whole narrative has been shown to be blatantly false, so what did they do?  Now the big ones are endocrine disruption (and here), Colony Collapse Disorder, and the junk science surrounding the Sixth Mass Extinction.   All of which have been proven false by time and real science.   None of which, as far as I can tell, the NPMA stands up against, and in point of fact, collaborates on. 

When the federal government banned DDT industry rose up as one to defend it, and it was the same for chlordane. Then came the Food Quality Protection Act and which brought about the irrational elimination of Ficam and Dursban (chlorpyrifos), [Neither were banned in spite of what you may read. The manufacturers pulled their registration for structural applications.  There was very little argument, and when Dow decided not to fight it the other companies manufacturing chlorpyrifos gave up.

Was it a business decision? You bet!

Chlorpyrifos was out of patent and it represented a very small percentage of their annual intake, at least from structural pest control, and the lawsuits kept coming. It is interesting that the last time I looked it’s still used as an agriculture product under the brand name Lorsban. But since then we've now learned just how deceitful the EPA has been with it's Secret Science on Dursban. Why aren't we demanding Dursban's return?

The makers of Ficam W (bendiocarb), which I understand is still used in Australia and New Zealand and I’m told still works on bed bugs, gave up also. Why? We lost two whole categories of pesticides [organophosphates and carbamates] from our arsenal with that terrible piece of legislation called the Food Quality Protection Act, which wasn’t about food or protection. It was about making it too expensive to keep pesticide registrations active, thereby banning pesticides without having to go through all those nasty and potentially messy legal and scientific steps - where they would have lost.

Now we come to those new restrictions on pyrethroids, and there was hardly a peep, except from Ohio’s pest controllers. People at the national level may not like it, but if the Ohio pest controllers – who are responsible for the very existence of NPMA – can stand up to be counted, and fight the good fight, why can't the NPMA?

A fight the entire industry should have been fighting and should still be fighting. But nothing happened. Quietly as church mice, passive as sheep and as rational as lemmings, NPMA did nothing useful to maintain our ability to use pyrethroids as we've been doing for decades.  Oh, I can hear the screams now about how much NPMA did, but the proof is in the pudding.  We have unreasonable restrictions.  

What’s worse it appears the manufactures of pyrethroids, known as the “Pyrethroid Working Group (PWG), an industry task force whose members are AMVAC, Bayer, Cheminova, DuPont, FMC Corporation, Syngenta and Valent", were part and parcel of this pesticide reduction scheme. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the Pyrethroid Working Group was formed. 

I wonder, does this whole thing sound conspiratorial to anyone besides me?  I know…I know…. there’s no such thing as a conspiracy.   I often wonder why the people who have never read a history book are so ardent in that view. Just a thought!  

And why were these restrictions to structural pest control and not to lawn care or agriculture?  We have substantial restrictions against where and how we make pyrethroid applications to structures, while the lawns, fields and shrubs can be covered with pyrethroids by the lawn care and agricultural industries.

Does that sound irrational to anyone besides me?

All this to protect an almost microscopic shrimplike creature known as Hyalella azteca, a creature that is capable of living in extremely adverse conditions, and is one of the most prolific creatures in North America and South America. Pyrethroids are used extensively everywhere. How can that be?  If these products are so deadly to Hyalella here in the United States, or more specifically California, why aren't they in the rest of the world?

I have spent some time going over the information available and there are a number of things I would like to see answered. Since this “shrimp” is so impacted by small amounts of pyrethroid materials; with one study claiming the appearance of chlorpyrifos created a more toxic impact, which I found truly interesting since we are no longer using chlorpyrifos in structural pest control, so where did that come from?  Agriculture!  Until recently there was no real effort to eliminate it for agricultural purposes, but Scott Pruitt, President Trump's first EPA director put a stop to that saying they were going to follow the science. While that's still being litigated, the important fact is this: The chemical companies fought to keep it for agriculture. Why not structural pest control? 

Why hasn't NPMA been more strident on these matters?   But the real questions that need answering are these:

• NPMA seems to have a penchant for embracing leftist narratives on pesticides and junk science. Why?
• Now our national association is deciding if it's going to get involved in "diversity" issues. Why?

  The structural pest control industry has nothing to be ashamed of.  We've accepted people from every walk of life in our industry, regardless of race, religion, sex and even sexual orientation.  In Ohio, in the 1960's one of the founders and first President of what's now the Greater Cleveland Pest Control Association was Bob Caldwell, and is a past President of the Ohio Pest Management Association.  He's black.  In the 1960's Ohio was either the first or among the first to choose a woman for it's state association President, Betty Portwood.  One of our recent Presidents was Molly Patton Marsh.  John Patton's daughter.  

  Betty has now passed and was in her 90's, and Bob is still running his company,  and both were respected and treated accordingly by our industry forever.

• What are NPMA's priorities?  
• Why has the NPMA decided to get involved in social engineering?  
• Is that their job?  
• Where in the NPMA constitution does it outline that as a duty?
• If that became their job, when was that decided, and by whom?   
• Does that mean we can start posting about social issues on the NPMA Open Forum, if it still exists?
  

  In the past anyone doing so would have their posts deleted, and even then, we were subject to unpublished and unknown standards for acceptance, even if the posts or comments met the posted criteria for acceptable posts.  

  I've been there, done that, so I know it's true.  Just like EPA had secret science, it would appear, the NPMA had, secret standards for posting on the Open Forum regarding topic, and who was posting.  But either way, we still have to come back to the main questions. 

• Why is the NPMA getting publicly involved with Social Justice issues?  
• What is their agenda, and why?
• If the NPMA can be so public about social issues that have no bearing on pest control, how can they restrict anyone else from doing so?
• Is that blatant hypocrisy!

I think those are important questions because they've clearly gone in directions that are not part of the real reason they came into existence, which used to be to fight for the structural pest control industry against all adversaries and enemies, in and out of government.

• What is their agenda now?   
• What are their priorities?
• Who articulated such an agenda and priorities and why?
• Do we need to redefine and rewrite the NPMA constitution and bylaws? 

Make no mistake about this, as Thomas Sowell stated: If there is ever a contest for words that substitute for thought, “diversity” should be recognized as the undisputed world champion. You don’t need a speck of evidence, or a single step of logic, when you rhapsodize about the supposed benefits of diversity. The very idea of testing this wonderful, magical word against something as ugly as reality seems almost sordid.

Ohio pest controllers and New York City pest controllers created the NPMA, back in the 1930's, and it's time Ohio walks away.  The fact of the matter is, NPMA Rang the Bell long ago and it's time for Ohio to decide to once again take the lead!  To Be or To Do: Which Way Will You Go?