Tag Archives

Archive of posts published in the tag: Thomas Sowell

Political Realities

Progress emanates from the work of a very few, unpredictably and contrary to conventional wisdom. The protection of freedom and individual rights for these few benefits us all more than the rights accruing only to the majority.

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Books That Changed My Views

ronically the system that recognized the permanence of human flaws, the Lockean influence on the American Constitution, has proven far less oppressive than the systems that believed in the malleability of human nature.

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Catharsis is not Progress

The fact that the history of the Tulsa massacre is such an outrage is because it is so rare today; indicative of the phenomenal progress we have made. We cannot change the past but we can impact the future. That means reckoning with the past honestly but also reckoning with the present honestly.  In Discrimination and Disparities Thomas Sowell addresses several other causes of inequities other than discrimination in the past and the present.  Real progress requires honesty more than outrage.

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The Sins of Others

Modern Critical Race Theory is sin with no redemption. Redemption of any sort would excise the political power from the movement. As it is practiced the movement depends more on appeasing white liberal elites than empowering Black individuals and communities.

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The Dictatorship of Reason

“I’m a big fan of reason, but Saul (and Schumpeter, Deneen, et al) have a point. Making reason the only criteria for a decision cleanses society of the nooks and crannies of meaning that make life worth living and the pursuit of happiness possible. The purely rational soldier will not fight, Chesterton observed. The purely rational man will not marry.”

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Visions of Evil

“While believers in the unconstrained vision seek the special causes of war, poverty, and crime, believers in the constrained vision seek the special causes of peace, wealth, or a law-abiding society. “

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Unarticulated Wisdom

The success of the American experiment is largely due IMO to the fortunate combination of dispersed political power being elegantly synchronous to the dispersed knowledge of the free market.

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Bastiat and Sowell

Mark Perry posts at Carpe Diem at AEI a wonderful collection of quotes from Thomas Sowell and Frederic Bastiat, who share the same birthday and economic insights. Happy 86th birthday to economist Thomas Sowell, one of the greatest living economists

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A Multi Factored World

Random Thoughts from Thomas Sowell at Town Hall: Global warming, due to greenhouse gasses, is the latest in a long series of one-factor theories about a multi-factor world. Such theories have often enjoyed great popularity, despite how often they have

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In the Secular World Saviours Dissappoint

From Thomas Sowell, Do Emotions Trump Facts? However puzzling the fervent support for Donald Trump may be today, given how little basis there is for it, such blind faith is not unique in history. Other dire or desperate times have

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Inert Blocks of Wood

From Thomas Sowell at National Review, What Democrats Mean by ‘Paying Your Fair Share’ Whether in politics or in the media, words are increasingly used, not to convey facts or even allegations of facts, but simply to arouse emotions. Undefined

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The Power of 20%

Kyle Peterson interviews Thomas Sowell in the Wall Street Journal in The March of Foolish Things: excerpt: So how can the case for reform be made? Let’s say the Republican presidential nominee has a speech lined up at the historically black

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The Economics of Culture

Kyle Peterson interviews Thomas Sowell in the Wall Street Journal in The March of Foolish Things: excerpt: He offers another statistic: “For every year from 1994 to the present, black married couples have had a poverty rate in single digits,” Mr. Sowell

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Perpetuating Bureaucracy

Kyle Peterson interviews Thomas Sowell in the Wall Street Journal in The March of Foolish Things: excerpt: Why do we never seem to learn these economic lessons? “I think there’s a market for foolish things,” Mr. Sowell says—and vested interests, too.

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Where Unfairness Originates

Kyle Peterson interviews Thomas Sowell in the Wall Street Journal in The March of Foolish Things: excerpt: Another problem is that the “disparate impact” assumption misidentifies where group differences originate. He sets up an example: “If you have people in

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Non Judgmental Subsidies

Dan Mitchell quotes Thomas Sowell in his blog International Liberty,  in Crime, Riots, Race, and the Welfare State Excerpt: Such trends are not unique to blacks, nor even to the United States. The welfare state has led to remarkably similar

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Observations 2013 03 06

Some Observations: I saw a Foxnews story that the sales of very high end luxury cars is booming.  I have stated that high estate taxes encourages conspicuous consumption.  If you are going to give a large portion of your accumulated wealth away,

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Who Are The Elite?

The elite are criticized for being out of touch from the rest of us, but they are rarely defined.  I am guilty of criticizing ‘elitist’ policies. The Tea Party and other populist groups from both sides of the isle have

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When Liberals Were Liberal

From Townhall, Random Thoughts by Thomas Sowell Excerpts: Whenever you hear people talking about “a living Constitution,” almost invariably they are people who are in the process of slowly killing it by “interpreting” its restrictions on government out of existence.

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Tax Lessons Unlearned

Thomas Sowell writes ‘Bait and Switch’ Taxes in The American Spectator, 9/5/12 excerpt: The Constitution of the United States had to be amended in 1913 to permit the federal government to collect income taxes. Almost immediately, very high tax rates

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