Thomas Sowell: Random thoughts on the passing scene
- From: "GWhyte" <gwhyte3003@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2005 12:11:59 -0400
Random Thoughts
Thomas Sowell (archive)
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050801.shtml
August 1, 2005
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
Sometimes I have so much to do that I don't do anything.
As a result of "evolving standards" and "nuanced" judicial decisions, we no
longer have clear-cut rights. We have a ticket to a crapshoot in a
courtroom. That ticket is worth a lot more to those with slick lawyers than
to ordinary citizens.
What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the
widespread habit of disregarding facts. Former House Majority Leader Dick
Armey put it this way: "Demagoguery beats data."
If anyone ever doubts that Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player of
all time, ask him: How many shutouts did Ty Cobb or Barry Bonds ever pitch?
Ruth still holds the American League record for shutouts in a season by a
left-handed pitcher.
It is hard to see how people who are opposed to faith-based organizations
can support the dogmas of the schools of education or the multiculturalists.
The government forces those who sell pharmaceutical drugs to list the
possible side effects, even if only a few people will suffer those side
effects. Unfortunately, the government itself never tells us about the bad
side effects of the things it prescribes.
I can understand poor people who have to struggle to make ends meet. What I
cannot understand are people who have plenty of money but who live so high
on the hog that they have to struggle to make ends meet, just as if they
were poor.
Everybody is for "fairness" -- because we all use the same word to mean
very different things. Some of the most confused and counterproductive
policies -- "fair trade" laws and the Fair Labor Standards Act, for
example -- have been built upon the shifting sands of fairness.
People used to say, "Ignorance is no excuse." Today, ignorance is no
problem. After all, you have "a right to your own opinion" -- and
self-esteem to boot.
One of the maddening things about computer programs and computerized
products is their making you fight your way through a maze of complications
to do simple things.
I never cease to be amazed at how often people throw around the lofty
phrase "social justice" without the slightest effort to define it. It cannot
be defined because it is an attitude masquerading as a principle.
Someone once said that a fool can put on his coat better than a wise man
can put it on for him. The implications of that undermine most of the agenda
of the political left.
People who say that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with the war on
terror are unaffected by the fact that the terrorists themselves obviously
think otherwise, as they converge on Iraq from other countries.
Horses are supposed to be dumb animals. But they are smart enough not to
bet on people.
One of the few encouraging signs to come out of France has been the ban on
head scarves in schools there, despite protests that these are traditional
among Islamic girls. No one has a right to come into someone else's society
and insist on playing by the rules of some other society. We in America need
to understand that as regards language, among other things.
Some ideas seem so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and
still be believed the tenth time. Other ideas seem so implausible that they
can succeed nine times in a row and still not be believed the tenth time.
Government controls in the economy are among the first kinds of ideas and
the operation of a free market is among the second kinds of ideas.
For reasons unknown, people on the left seem to take inordinate pride in
being able to make verbal parallels -- whether or not there is any parallel
in substance.
With vastly more money available around the world as private investment
than there is as foreign aid, why do Third World countries want or need
foreign aid? Because private investors will seldom put their own money into
projects that have no realistic chance of working or into countries too
corrupt and unreliable to expect the money to be used responsibly, much less
repaid.
.
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