That is an extremely dangerous way of looking at the world. If everything we experienced was accurate, we might as well take for a fact that some people who were high (drugs) could step from a building and fly.
.
Just because one feels or thinks something doesn't make it a fact.

I guess, if someone told me that the realized pacifism was power, I would want the scientific study that proved that to be true. Personal anecdotes have never been proof of anything.

I suppose the other side of this is that I am not American. Opinion and feelings are not what we go by. We are interested in facts. So I read the piece expecting to be provided with evidence of the claim that pacifism was power.