Random Thoughts (Thomas Sowell)

Jewish World Review ^ | May 26, 2009 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

They say that people mellow with age. However, the older I get, the less patience I have with cleverness.

If increased government spending with borrowed or newly created money is a "stimulus," then the Weimar Republic should have been stimulated to unprecedented prosperity, instead of runaway inflation and widespread economic desperation that ultimately brought Adolf Hitler to power.

Just days after Colin Campbell informed us that the American people were willing to pay higher taxes in order to get government services— and that Republicans therefore needed to stop their opposition to taxes— California voters resoundingly defeated a bill to raise taxes in order to pay for the many government services in that liberal state.

Who was it who said: "I cannot tell what powers may have to be exercised in order to win this war"? George W. Bush? Dick Cheney? Donald Rumsfeld? Actually it was Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a "fireside chat" broadcast on September 7, 1942. He understood that survival was the number one right, without which all other rights are meaningless.

They say adversity concentrates the mind. Now that Republicans have been badly beaten in two consecutive Congressional elections, what Republican leaders in Congress are saying today makes more sense than what they said when they were in power.

When my sister's children were teenagers, she told them that, if they got into trouble and ended up in jail, to remember that they had a right to make one phone call. She added: "Don't waste that call phoning me." We will never know whether they would have followed her advice, since none of them was ever in jail.

[jazusamo]

*PING*
Thomas Sowell

Recent columns
Housing interview by Brian Doherty
Photographic Fraud
Phone Interview on Housing Crisis

Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Thomas Sowell ping list…

[Travis McGee]

Tom Sowell is an American treasure!

[jazusamo]

I always look forward to his Random Thoughts.

[Travis McGee]

Always. He is one of a handful of writers I always stop to read. I admire his mind, and his ability to express his thoughts in English.

[KarlInOhio]

Dr. Sowell's random thoughts are better than 99% of the population's organized thoughts.

[TAdams8591]

"But putting them within the jurisdiction of liberal circuit court judges who can find reasons to turn them loose is a much more serious issue."

My thought exactly. It's the reason they're in Guantanomo in the first place.

[jazusamo]

Exactly, and we can be sure some of those judges will find reasons to free them.

[rockinqsranch]

Thanks for the ping jaz.

“How many American lives are you prepared to sacrifice, in order to spare a terrorist from experiencing distress?”

How many Democrats are there?

[rawcatslyentist]

>"Why the mere relocation of imprisoned terrorists from Guantanamo to prisons in the United States is a moral issue in the first place "

Judging the morality of murdering infants is above his pay grade.

Releasing terrorist among us apparently isn't.

Thank You Satan 1:50

[jazusamo]

Now that’s a thought. :)

[JoJo Gunn]

Much discussion of the interrogation of captured terrorists ignores the inescapable reality of trade-offs. The real question is: How many American lives are you prepared to sacrifice, in order to spare a terrorist from experiencing distress?

[Lizavetta]

We seem to be moving steadily in the direction of a society where no one is responsible for what he himself did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did, either in the present or in the past.

Isn't that the truth.

[mrsmel]

I love what his sister told her kids. Good for her, and for her kids never needing to make that call.

[MHGinTN]

Thanks so much for the ping ... never want to miss a good Sowell lesson.

[genghis]

he cheers me up with each column.

[GreyMountainReagan]

When my sister's children were teenagers, she told them that, if they got into trouble and ended up in jail, to remember that they had a right to make one phone call. She added: "Don't waste that call phoning me."

OB Wan to Yoda: "He is our only hope."

Yoda to OB Wan: "No there is another."

If something happens to TS can we enlist Sister TS to save us?

[GOP_Raider]

Why let discussions with visiting celebrities be a constant distraction during a televised tennis match or baseball game?

Quick story that kind of involves this sort of annoyance. I'm a die hard San Francisco Giants fan and last Mother's Day, the Giants were playing the Phillies and Comcast Sports Net Bay Area decided to interview none other than Nancy Pelosi during the top of the 5th inning. Well, after they're done with the softball interview, the camera moves over to some woman wearing a Giants jersey that said "Democrat 08" on the back.

While I'm swearing like a drunken sailor, the Phillies score two runs in the inning, one of them thanks to a triple by Ryan Howard to take the lead 3-2. I'm convinced to this day that the karmic retribution thanks to that interview caused that two run rally.

That's enough ranting for one night I suppose.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Governments should govern, not micro-manage the economy. A government unrealistic enough to think it can micro-manage is likely to do a worse job than most.

The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II

[fightinJAG]

bfl!