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A Further Perspective
Random Thoughts
On Christmas, guns, economics, and war.
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
When I was growing up, an older member of the family used to say, “What you don’t know would make a big book.” Now that I am an older member of the family, I would say to anyone, “What you don’t know would fill more books than the Encyclopedia Britannica.” At least half of our society’s troubles come from know-it-alls, in a world where nobody knows even 10 percent of all.
Some people seem to think that, if life is not fair, then the answer is to turn more of the nation’s resources over to politicians — who will, of course, then spend these resources in ways that increase the politicians’ chances of getting reelected.
The annual outbursts of intolerance toward any display of traditional Christmas scenes, or even daring to call a Christmas tree by its name, show that today’s liberals are by no means liberal. Behind the mist of their lofty words, the totalitarian mindset shows through.
If you don’t want to have a gun in your home or in your school, that’s your choice. But don’t be such a damn fool as to advertise to the whole world that you are in “a gun-free environment” where you are a helpless target for any homicidal fiend who is armed. Is it worth a human life to be a politically correct moral exhibitionist?
The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a wrecking crew, dismantling civilization bit by bit — replacing what works with what sounds good.
Some people are wondering what takes so long for the negotiations about the “fiscal cliff.” Maybe both sides are waiting for supplies. Democrats may be waiting for more cans to kick down the road. Republicans may be waiting for more white flags to hold up in surrender.
If I were rich, I would have a plaque made up, and sent to every judge in America, bearing a statement made by Adam Smith more than two and a half centuries ago: “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”
If someone wrote a novel about a man who was raised from childhood to resent the successful and despise the basic values of America — and who then went on to become President of the United States — that novel would be considered too unbelievable, even for a work of fiction. Yet that is what has happened in real life.
Many people say, “War should be a last resort.” Of course it should be a last resort. So should heart surgery, divorce and many other things. But that does not mean that we should just continue to hope against hope indefinitely that things will work out, somehow, until catastrophe suddenly overtakes us.
Everybody is talking about how we are going to pay for the huge national debt, but nobody seems to be talking about the runaway spending which created that record-breaking debt. In other words, the big spenders get political benefits from handing out goodies, while those who resist giving them more money to spend will be blamed for sending the country off the “fiscal cliff.”
When Barack Obama refused to agree to a requested meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the leader of a country publicly and repeatedly threatened with annihilation by Iran’s leaders, as the Iranians move toward creating nuclear bombs — I thought of a line from the old movie classic Citizen Kane: “Charlie wasn’t cruel. He just did cruel things.”
There must be something liberating about ignorance. Back when most members of Congress had served in the military, there was a reluctance of politicians to try to tell military leaders how to run the military services. But, now that few members of Congress have ever served in the military, they are ready to impose all sorts of fashionable notions on the military.
After watching a documentary about the tragic story of Jonestown, I was struck by the utterly unthinking way that so many people put themselves completely at the mercy of a glib and warped man, who led them to degradation and destruction. And I could not help thinking of the parallel with the way we put a glib and warped man in the White House.
There are people calling for the banning of assault weapons who could not define an “assault weapon” if their life depended on it. Yet the ignorant expect others to take them seriously.
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.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (29) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 12.27.12 @ 7:33AM
As always, you hit the nails right on the head, sir. I especially like your comment about the "intellectuals...replacing what works with what sounds good." I took Economics in night school after failing it at University, and the class was filled with people who worked in business and who objected that many of the tenets the professor was espousing did not in fact work in real life. Finally the professor lost his temper and shouted, "It doesn't matter if any of this works or not! You are required to learn what's in this book and pass the test on it at the end!" It took me the rest of the week to figure out what I had just heard was the heartfelt cry of the Hippie Scum who wanted me to build Paradise from a kit where half the pieces are from some other puzzle and the rest make a picture of desolation and despair. Or, as Rocky the Flying Squirrel liked to point out, "That trick never works!"
c. j. acworth| 12.27.12 @ 7:44AM
Did you pass the course? If I had come to the same realization as you, I would've been sorely tempted to chuck it over, and just kiss my money goodby.
Appleby| 12.27.12 @ 11:50AM
Yes, I did. I had to pass the course for the CLE (Continuing Legal Education, I think) credits needed for work. I have passed a lot of examinations in my lifetime showing how I know the useless information required by somebody or other, and forgotten everything about the course the next day.
Stan Redmond| 12.27.12 @ 5:31PM
That is straight out of the scene "Back to School" with Rodney Dangerfield. Rodney's character is a succesful business man who lectures the professor of economics on the realities of business. The professor just says "These are not the way we do things in the legitimate business world and certainly not the way I teach my class"
Von Mises Jr| 12.27.12 @ 9:47AM
We are living a surreal nightmare.
- As Dr. Sowell points out, we have a non-American Constitution hater as Chief Executive in charge of enforcing it.
- We have a Secretary of State and a proposed new Secretary of State that hate America, the later accusing fellow military of war crimes.
- We have an Energy Secretary that would like to see $8 gas, but just not all at once.
- We have a former head of the CIA now Secretary of Defense whom is touted to embrace communism.
- We have the Head of the Jobs Council whom just gave kudos to communism to join the ranks of Czars Bloom, Dunn and Van Jones, as well as NYT columnist "Loopy" Friedman.
- The gal that lied on six Sunday news shows was the same that convinced BJ Clinton to not accept Bin Laden before he toppled the WTC killing 3,000 Americans, and she allegedly was not for taking him out in Pock-E-stan
Thank God we still have Dr. Sowell. Everything else has pretty much gone to hell.
Al Adab| 12.27.12 @ 10:12AM
Unbelievable Jr.
"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."
Von Mises Jr| 12.27.12 @ 11:07AM
I am glad I am old and my family does not have a history of long lives. I mourn for the next generation.
Peppermint Tea | 12.27.12 @ 11:24AM
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked rule, the people mourn.” (Proverbs 29:2)
SUBVET| 12.27.12 @ 11:52AM
Read........... Daniel 2:21
Just remember WE are not in control.........
Al Adab| 12.27.12 @ 1:05PM
S/V:
He judges the nations and while we know His kingdom will endure forever, there is no gurantee that our kingdoms will likewise. In fact it is quite likely that we have been weighed in the balance and found wanting for our idolotry and sacrifice of children to false gods.
Kwan| 12.27.12 @ 10:01AM
And I could not help thinking of the parallel with the way we put a glib and warped man in the White House.....Excellent point. Jim Jones (Peoples Temple), Bill Ayers (Weather Underground), General Field Marshall Cinque (Symbionese Liberation Army), Barack Obama (People's Democratic Revolutionary Liberation Party) a genuine group of losers that produced nothing of value for the morons that followed them.
Al Adab| 12.27.12 @ 10:15AM
As R R said, "Liberals aren't ignorant, they just know so much that isn't true."
The arrogance of those who think they know what is best ofr the rest of us is beyond belief. How did we ever decide (many of us didn't) to turn over decision making to "our betters" and let them define who they were?
Kwan| 12.27.12 @ 10:34AM
In 1945 the German people awoke to the terrible price they had to pay -the destruction of their country- for the mistake of allowing a charismatic, glib, and warped individual to become leader of their country. Will the American people suffer the same fate? Very possibly.
Al Adab| 12.27.12 @ 11:01AM
Not imposed from without, but created from within. In 1964 James Burnham wrote, "Suicide of the West". Prophetic as it turns out. Distopia born.
Pecos Pete| 12.27.12 @ 11:02AM
Dr. Sowell has outlined a new book that would be a best seller.
Petronius| 12.27.12 @ 12:09PM
'Twas a day in last November, a month I will remember, as I stumbled down a street in drunken pride,
When my knees began to flutter and I fell down in the gutter, and a pig came up and lay down by my side.
As I sat there in the gutter, thinking thoughts I could not utter, I thought I heard a passing lady say, "you can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses," and with that the pig got up and walked away.
The day has come when there is no getting away anymore. Unless you already have enough wealth to insulate yourself from the lowlife, there is no escaping them any longer. This is exactly what the Liberals want. Rights are only for Them. Remember the first Right they took from Us was the Right to Freely Associate, which means the Right not to Associate.
atilla| 12.27.12 @ 12:50PM
EXCELLENT, WAY TO GO THOMAS.
cicero| 12.27.12 @ 4:56PM
Perhaps a new party called "The Thomas Sowell Party" based on common sense, the Constitution, and the right of every citizen to live his/her life without having to endure the "wisdom" of the elite.
cicero| 12.27.12 @ 4:59PM
My dear Petronius, as you have recalled that famous ditty about the pig and the gutter, perhaps you also can recall the one about not teaching pigs to sing, as it somehow wastes your time, and irritates the pig. While I was laughing at yours above, I recalled the other, but can't call up the exact words.
Mike W| 12.27.12 @ 5:50PM
It makes me want to puke when I read of current conservatives lamenting about Obama's contempt for the constitution. When Bush pushed the Patriot Act, it was ok because he was one of us. Now that the Patriot act will be used against us, it is an outrage.
All the neocon crap that got us here is not acknowledged and that happened under Bush 2. Next they will try and take our guns. As before, if Bush had done then some conservatives would have been all for it.
Petronius| 12.27.12 @ 6:41PM
The Bushes are Not Conservatives, never have been, and never will be. The term "neocon"is a misnomer with the accent on the "con", more readily associated with "con game". There has been almost no Conservative governance in living memory, so few people know a Real Conservative when they meet one. Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford were more liberal than the Bushes as there was no real pressure on any of them from the Right. Goldwater got some traction as majority leader of the Senate, but he too wound up being a squish. Reagan made his deal with that Devil, Tip O'Neill who then stuck it back up his butt with baseline budgeting and cuts that were only decreases in spending increases. The social issue activists never got anything more than the annual luncheon appearance and lip service. And we won't see any change until people are fed up with the 60's trash running everything. If they get their gun law and totally subjugate us, we will die defenseless at the hands of the urban gangs, which has been their plan for 50 years.
RCV| 12.27.12 @ 7:09PM
The late life rantings of a once insightful man who has become little more than a sour curmudgeon.
Occam's Tool| 12.27.12 @ 9:39PM
Dr. Sowell is still quite insightful. Obama's election was and is a horrible mistake, and one we will pay for for quite a while.
Ralphie| 12.28.12 @ 4:22PM
Dr. Sowell is one of my favorites. He does not wear rose colored glasses. Nor does he believe he has all the answers to problems. He still believes in the collective wisdom of the people verses the wisdom of a few elites. That is a very positive insight as an American I would think.
It seems silly to me that the government does very little well, yet is very willing to take on more and more. And more and more of the public seems to think that this time it will be different, that people with good intentions will equate to good outcomes.
The current trend seems suicidal, and that is cause for being pessimistic. Robert Samuelson has been very critical and down on the current government and actually called it suicidal. He is not a conservative.
Weedpuller| 12.30.12 @ 12:02AM
Bravo.
Weedpuller| 12.30.12 @ 12:02AM
Bravo.
Weedpuller| 12.30.12 @ 12:02AM
Bravo.
Weedpuller| 12.30.12 @ 12:03AM
Bravo.
Suzyqpie| 12.30.12 @ 8:59AM
My favorite Dr Sowell quote, "The poor are the human shields that government uses to grow government." The majority of legislation passed in the last 50 yrs was ostensibly to help the poor. The government subdizes poverty and failure. We get more of whatever government subdizes.