Know-It-All Stubborn Mules

Michael Lewis has this quote at the beginning of his book “The Big Short”.  Kind of explains the whole financial crisis in a nutshell and the whole political circus going on nationally and all the way down to the local level.

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.”  -Leo Tolstoy, 1897

A lot of people have their mind already made up despite having facts placed before them.  I heard this recently from a city council member who doesn’t like “public parks” especially ones who are trying to be “sustainable” because that means they are part of U.N. Agenda 21.  “You’re not going to change my mind.”

You see, that’s the first thing I would ask any candidate or politician.  “Could you change your mind?…without a bribe, that is?