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The Obama Watch
Obama’s Dreams
Confident ignorance is a dangerous quality in a leader.
After reading Barack Obama’s book Dreams from My Father, it became painfully clear that he has not been searching for the truth, because he assumed from an early age that he had already found the truth — and now it was just a question of filling in the details and deciding how to change things.
Obama did not simply happen to encounter a lot of people on the far left fringe during his life. As he spells out in his book, he actively sought out such people. There is no hint of the slightest curiosity on his part about other visions of the world that might be weighed against the vision he had seized upon.
As Professor Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School has pointed out, Obama made no effort to take part in the marketplace of ideas with other faculty members when he was teaching a law course there. What would be the point, if he already knew the truth and knew that they were wrong?
This would be a remarkable position to take, even for a learned scholar who had already spent decades canvassing a vast amount of information and views on many subjects. But Obama was already doctrinaire at a very early age — and ill-informed or misinformed on both history and economics.
His statement in Dreams from My Father about how white men went to Africa to “drag away the conquered in chains” betrays his ignorance of African history.
The era of the Atlantic slave trade and the era of European conquests across the continent of Africa were different eras. During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, most of Africa was ruled by Africans, who sold some of their slaves to white men.
European conquests in Africa had to wait until Europeans found some way to survive lethal African diseases, to which they lacked resistance. Only after medical science learned to deal with these diseases could the era of European conquests spread across sub-Saharan Africa. But the Atlantic slave trade was over by then.
There was no reason why Barack Obama had to know this. But there was also no reason for him to be shooting off his mouth without knowing what he was talking about.
Similarly with Obama’s characterization of the Nile as “the world’s greatest river.” The Nile is less than 10 percent longer than the Amazon, but the Amazon delivers more than 50 times as much water into the Atlantic as the Nile delivers into the Mediterranean. The Nile could not accommodate the largest ships, even back in Roman times, much less the aircraft carriers of today that can sail up the Hudson River and dock in midtown Manhattan.
When Obama wrote that many people “had been enslaved only because of the color of their skin,” he was repeating a common piece of gross misinformation. For thousands of years, people enslaved other people of the same race as themselves, whether in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Western Hemisphere.
Europeans enslaved other Europeans for centuries before the first African was brought in bondage to the Western Hemisphere. The very word “slave” is derived from the name of a European people once widely held in bondage, the Slavs.
As for economics, Obama thought that Indonesians would be worse off after Europeans came in, used up their natural resources and then left them too poor to continue the modern way of life to which they had become accustomed, or to resume their previous way of life, after their previous skills had atrophied.
This fear of European “exploitation” prevailed widely in the Third World in the middle of the 20th century. But, by the late 20th century, the falseness of that view had been demonstrated so plainly and so often, in countries around the world, that even socialist and communist governments began opening their economies to foreign investments. This often led to rising economic growth rates that lifted millions of people out of poverty.
Barack Obama is one of those people who are often wrong but never in doubt. When he burst upon the national political scene as a presidential candidate in 2008, even some conservatives were impressed by his confidence.
But confident ignorance is one of the most dangerous qualities in a leader of a nation. If he has the rhetorical skills to inspire the same confidence in himself by others, then you have the ingredients for national disaster.
COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM
About the Author
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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Scaramouche| 9.4.12 @ 6:57AM
Just last evening, I was wondering how much we must spend, on Federal agents whose only job it is, to surpress the emergence of the hundreds of students that attended university with Onumbnuts, that we never hear from?
Mimi | 9.4.12 @ 7:08AM
It is good for us to know the REASON behind .....
"The National Disaster". We all know about word of mouth, from our elders much of it facsinating and when young is often repeated. When we open ourselves to become educated we examine all sides. A personal note: My great Grandmother told us kids we all came from english royalty...when a teenager my sister heard me repeat the tale..."For GODS sake Mimi she told us all that because it was 'the depression' and she didn't want us to grow up ashamed cause we were poor" When I told my children much later in life about the character of their Great- Great grandmother it was to describe ..just that..caring about the feelings. Of course Poor didn't last long...In America all do well. A lesson for today I guess.
Nice art.icle again Dr. Sowell for a help in making meaning and understanding what is really going on here...A National Disaster from Ignorant Confidence!
Bob K| 9.4.12 @ 7:16AM
Obama: The very definition of "The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements" that Eric Hoffer wrote about in 1951.
Appleby| 9.4.12 @ 7:16AM
It's too bad we couldn't have heard all this 4 years ago. Of course, some of us heard this kind of confident ignorance in 1968, and recognized it then. But then what do we know? We're adults!
Von Mises Jr| 9.4.12 @ 7:31AM
"Change" is what came to the barbarian tribes of Northern Europe when the Romans conquered as far north as England.
Dr. Sowell explains in "Conquests and Migrations" that Eastern Europe lagged behind Western Europe because the Romans brought drainage systems, sanitation, laws and government structure to places such as England and France. Should the Brits and French give up their toilets since the Romans were brutal conquerors?
The "Change" that Obama seeks is the pre-industrial revolution Europe where the luddites rule. If we only could get rid of looms and ATM's, there would be jobs for everyone. You could earn a day’s wage shoveling horse manure from the dirt roads.
That is his Utopia; except its Dystopia and he doesn't tell you that he lives in the castle and you work for him.
Dodd2| 9.4.12 @ 7:59AM
In the 2016 movie, George Obama, BHO's half-brother, is interviewed, and what he says helps explain why the president won't lift a finger to help him.
In the interview, George lamented that Kenya kicked out the Whites after gaining their independence, and he attributes this to Kenya's current pitiful condition.
This is the direct opposite of B. Hussein Obama's view of history. Unfortunately for our Obama, it is George who has the correct and rational view of reality.
Butch| 9.4.12 @ 3:53PM
Where I come from, we have a term for someone's who's wrong and sure he's right: a damn fool.
Burlington| 9.4.12 @ 4:07PM
Alert experts (Drs. Ali Sina and Sam Lakin) had identified the POTUS Narcissistic Personality Disorder prior to the 2008 election.
RJ| 9.4.12 @ 6:01PM
Dr. Sowell has crafted a new slogan for Obama and his supporters: "Often wrong but never in doubt."
BobSmith223| 9.4.12 @ 6:19PM
lol How sadly true!
MTB| 9.4.12 @ 6:19PM
Man, I love Thomas Sowell. But he'd better be careful or the MSM and democrats will call him racist.
BobSmith223| 9.4.12 @ 6:29PM
Every day, I become more amazed that our country actually elected this guy! What is even more amazing, is that despite all the glaring evidence of him not being qualified to perform as our president, and his blatant disrespect/disregard for the office and its functions, he may be re-elected!
RJ| 9.5.12 @ 1:21AM
While 2008 was a weak year for the GOP, given Bush's record and McCain's problems as a candidate, it still is astounding that Obama was even a nominee of one of the major parties, let alone elected President. Consider this:
He is among the few Presidents who came to office with no executive experience, this at a time when the Executive Branch is more complex than ever.
He really didn't have any noteworthy accomplishment in government. He was US Senator for only 4 years and before that an undistinguished state senator.
He spent his life with radicals, which in earlier times would have disqualified him. By comparison, he is the first Democrat not from the South (and viewed as a moderate) since JFK.
In high school, he was known as the class pothead. Guys like Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) in Fast Times at Ridgemont High aren't considered for positions of responsibility.
How times have changed. It is surprising at how well he is doing in the polls. I doubt if he would have gotten 25% of the vote 20 years ago.
John II| 9.4.12 @ 7:38PM
Mr. Sowell's terse observations about the Professor are spot-on, precise, lapidary.
What else is there to say? And do I need to wonder why there are no trolls on this unusually brief thread?
Anyhow, Mr. Sowell inspires me to contemplate Professor Obama and his retinue of morally challenged handlers--and withal to give vent to my Bible-clutching thoughts:
WOE TO THOSE WHO CALL EVIL GOOD AND GOOD EVIL!
The reckoning is nigh. I reckon. Dr. Isaiah, call your office.
And now back to "The Road" (2009), in which the apocalyptic consequences of the Obamanation are anticipated in a dystopian vision of the future as nightmare. The conservative Robert Duvall appears in a crucial supporting role.
Erick| 9.6.12 @ 3:27AM
"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so." Pres. R.Reagan, 1964, "A Time For Choosing"