Real Patriots Ask Questions: A Candle in the Dark for our Industry

The short version: Carl Sagan warned in 1995 that a society that stops asking questions becomes easy to divide and easy to fool. Our industry is living that warning. The issues facing our shops are all connected, false stories about ISFA have spread faster than the facts, and the way forward is honest questions, open conversation and unity among small and medium-sized businesses. Full version below.

Key Takeaways:

• Real patriots ask questions. The freedoms our veterans defended include the right to question and the due process that protects it.
• Test what you hear. Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit" asks: Can it be confirmed? Who benefits? Did anyone ask the source?
• Surface vs. depth politics. Surface politics treats silicosis, trade and federal bills as separate fights. Depth politics sees that they all land on the same shop floor.

• Worker safety guides our approach. ISFA recognizes the seriousness of silicosis, respects medical expertise, and supports informed discussions about prevention, including the role of safe fabrication practices, education, and workplace protections.

• ISFA follows the law. We are a 501(c)(6) nonprofit governed by antitrust, lobbying and tax rules, and we represent the fabrication community, not the product community.
• Licensing protects shops, workers and installers. It does not harm them.
• Your moral compass is yours. Staying silent and leaving the room is different from helping spread a story that isn't true.
• Unity matters most. It's time to let go of grudges held in the name of market share.

Dear Fabricators, 

I am writing this on Veterans Day, so let me start where my heart is. Thank you to every veteran who has served our country. Your service goes beyond war. You protected the freedoms that let us own a business and run it. You protected the laws that allow us to do business. And you protected due process, the platform that gives every one of us the right to question.

That right to question is what brought me back to a book this week: Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Sagan wrote it in 1995. Reading it today, I kept asking myself: were we warned, and we just didn't listen?

Sagan worried about a future where most people no longer understood the technology and science shaping their lives. He worried that power would gather in a few hands, that citizens would lose the ability to judge what they were being told, and that we would slide back into superstition and fear almost without noticing. Thirty years later, with algorithms rewarding outrage and stories traveling faster than facts, that warning reads like this morning's news.

What Sagan teaches us

Sagan's core idea is simple. Science is not just a pile of facts. It is a way of thinking. It assumes we might be wrong, and it rewards whoever proves it. That humility is its strength.

He gave readers a "Baloney Detection Kit," a set of tools for testing any claim. A few that every shop owner, distributor and manufacturer can use this week:

• Look for independent confirmation. Did anyone check the story, or did it just get repeated?
• Encourage real debate among people who know the facts.
• Don't accept a claim just because of who said it. Titles and logos are not evidence.
• Consider other explanations before you settle on the one you already believed.
• Check every link in the chain. If one link fails, the whole argument fails.
• Watch for the common traps: personal attacks instead of facts, cherry-picked evidence, false either/or choices, and "you can't prove it isn't true."

Sagan also wrote about the witch hunts, which, as a history buff, hit me hard. They show what happens when fear, authority and the lack of any way to challenge the evidence come together. People get hurt, and the truth comes out too late to help them.

One of his chapters is titled "Real Patriots Ask Questions." His point was that free speech, a free press and the freedom to question those in power are not threats to a country. They are how a country protects itself. That is the gift our veterans defended.

When a freedom gets used to divide

I recently said that our First Amendment right can be weaponized to divide Americans. I heard back, in so many words: how dare she suggest that about the fabricators?

Let me be clear about what I meant. Free speech is sacred. But the same freedom that lets us question can be used to spread a story that isn't true, and a story repeated enough starts to feel like fact. Sagan's answer was never less speech. It was better thinking.

After everything I have experienced as a CEO trying to create autonomy for our fabricators, no matter their business model, I still believe there are good people in this industry. Many of them. And I think it is time to be responsible and let go of the grudges that have been held in the name of market share.

Surface politics vs. depth politics

There are two kinds of industry politics.

Surface industry politics is who said what, whose logo is on which letter, and which meeting someone was or wasn't invited to. It treats silicosis, trade and federal bills as separate fights that can be won or lost one at a time.

Depth industry politics is the reality for American custom manufacturing businesses: these issues are all connected. The silica rulemaking in California, the trade proceedings over imported slabs, and the bills moving in Washington all land on the same shop floor, the same payroll and the same worker. You cannot solve one while ignoring the others.

I have appreciated all the calls and conversations this fall. Many start with some version of: "Laurie, what you are saying and what I hear in the industry doesn't match." I welcome that. I will always choose a conversation with a fabricator or distributor who is struggling to understand how their business fits into what is happening in California and nationally. Most of those conversations end the same way: "I'm so sorry. I had no idea. How do I help right now?"

That is depth. That is what changes an industry.

We are not doctors

Last week the American Medical Association's Interim Meeting took up a resolution opposing high-silica engineered stone nationwide. Here is what I said in ISFA's response, and I stand by it:

"We are not doctors, and we will not act like it. Silicosis is real, it is devastating, and it is preventable. We respect the physicians and researchers who have treated these workers and sounded the alarm. Our disagreement is not with the medicine. It is with the idea that a product ban, by itself, will protect the people doing this work."

That is the candle in the dark: respect the science, ask honest questions, and keep working toward a solution that protects workers now.

A conference of real solutions

We are just coming off our annual conference in Fort Worth. It had great content and offered real solutions for our shops and their workers. For an association our size, that is a huge achievement, and it belongs to our members, our speakers, our partners and our staff.

I'll be honest. As CEO, I spent too much of this season distracted by false and untrue narratives about ISFA. ISFA is so lucky to have a team that functions while allowing me to do the work that needs to be done. Thank you to every one of them.

Let me say it again

ISFA is a nonprofit trade association, organized under section 501(c)(6) of the tax code. There are laws that govern our work: antitrust law, lobbying disclosure rules, tax reporting on lobbying expenses, and the fiduciary duties of our board. We follow them, and we welcome anyone who wants to see how.

ISFA represents the fabrication community, not the product community. We receive sponsorship dollars from both natural and engineered stone manufacturers and distributors, and they have no influence on our advocacy agenda.

I also want to recognize the commitment of our board, today and in the past. These are volunteers who run businesses, carry payrolls and give their time anyway. Assume positive intent from the people who show up. They have earned it.

And on licensing: licensing does not harm fabrication shops, their workers, or the installers who partner with them. It protects them. 

What have you been told about ISFA, and is it true?

This is where I'd ask you to use Sagan's kit. Think about what you have heard about ISFA this year. Then ask:

• Who told me, and did they have something to gain?
• Can it be independently confirmed?
• Did anyone ask ISFA?

I'll give you a few I've heard. That ISFA supports federal bill H.R. 5437: not true. That ISFA's positions are bought by sponsors: not true. That licensing is designed to push small shops out: not true.

Every one of us has a choice. We can say nothing and exit the room when a story we know is false is being told. Or we can stay and become part of a narrative that isn't true. That is a moral compass, and it is judged only by you.

So, I'm asking you to take a new look at what you've heard and what you know. The unity of our small and medium-sized businesses is what matters most. When we are divided, others write our future for us. When we stand together, we write it ourselves.

As Sagan put it in his own way: a real patriot asks questions. So, ask them. Ask us. We will always answer.

If you read the book, let me know. I would love to get your perspective.

Thank you again to our veterans and thank you for reading.

Laurie Weber

CEO, International Surface Fabricators Association (ISFA)