Uncommon Knowledge - An interview with Thomas Sowell on "A Conflict of Visions"

Click the image above to be taken to Part I of V, where Thomas Sowell describes the critical differences between interests and visions. Interests, he says, are articulated by people who know what their interests are and what they want to do about them. Visions, however, are the implicit assumptions by which people operate. This idea elevates to politics, where visions are either “constrained” or “unconstrained.”

Here are the links and brief descriptions of the other parts:

Part II - Sowell describes the constrained and unconstrained visions of the law, noting that the former applies to John McCain and the latter to Barrack Obama.

Part III - Speaking of the differing visions of war, Sowell says the constrained vision is never surprised by war, while the unconstrained vision almost always is.

Part IV - Is John McCain’s the constrained vision of the economy, and is Obama’s the unconstrained? According to Sowell, the distinction is sadly not that clear.

Part V - Thomas Sowell discusses the dangerous unconstrained vision of Barack Obama and other elites. And what will happen if this vision scores a three-house sweep on Election Day? Sowell says we may have reached “a point of no return.”

A closer look at McCain's ACU Ratings...

I've now heard John McCain on numerous occasions tout his lifetime 82.3 rating from the American Conservative Union when confronted with questions regarding his issues with the conservative base. Not surprisingly, there's more to the story.

Randall Hoven takes a closer look at those ratings and how they fare relative to others in Congress:

Senator John McCain's lifetime rating of 82.3% from the American Conservative Union is often cited as proof that he is conservative. Here is a closer look at that 82.3 rating.

First, a rating of 82.3 is not really that high. It puts Senator McCain in 39th place among senators serving in 2006, the latest year for which the ACU has its ratings posted online. For that most recent year in particular, McCain scored only 65, putting him in 47th place for that year. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), for example, scored 64 and 75, respectively, in 2006.

Generally, McCain has voted less conservatively in more recent years. His average for 1990-97 was 88, but was only 74 for 1998-2006. Below are his yearly ratings since 1990.

Year / ACU Rating

2006 - 65
2005 - 80
2004 - 72
2003 - 80
2002 - 72
2001 - 68
2000 - 81
1999 - 77
1998 - 68
1997 - 80
1996 - 95
1995 - 91
1994 - 96
1993 - 83
1992 - 85
1991 - 86
1990 - 87

...

What this means is that McCain's ACU ratings since 1998 put him on the liberal side among Republicans. The few Republicans consistently more liberal than McCain would be Chafee (formerly R-RI), Collins (R-ME), Snowe (R-ME) and Specter (R-PA). One could expect senators from northeastern states to be more liberal since their constituencies demand it, but McCain represents the fairly conservative state of Arizona. (Arizona's other senator, Kyl, has a lifetime rating of 96.9, and half the representatives from there have ratings of 94.7 or higher.)

How much more liberal would McCain vote if his constituency put even the slightest pressure on him in that direction?

On the other hand, Senator Clinton (D-NY) has a lifetime ACU rating of 9 (83rd place) and Senator Obama (D-IL) has a rating of 8 (86th place).

I'm with Mr. Reagan in feeling that John McCain doesn't like me much.

Also, Thomas Sowell on McCain's straight talk lies.

The GOP May Regret Raising McCain.

If you want to 'make a difference', give back the truth...

Thomas Sowell should be on your regular reading list if he's not already. He has an amazingly clear and concise writing style that is easy to read. He's also thought-provoking and, well, right.

Townhall has all of his columns. Here's his "curriculum vita" if you're interested.

His latest column is titled Stop "Making A Difference":

Making a difference makes sense only if you are convinced that you have mastered the subject at hand to the point where any difference you might make would be for the better.

Very few people have mastered anything that well beyond their own limited circle of knowledge. Even fewer seem to think far enough ahead to consider that question. Yet hardly a day goes by without news of some uninformed busybodies on one crusade or another.

...

Indeed, many who repeat the "giving back" mantra would sneer at any such notion as patriotism or any idea that the institutions and values of American society have accomplished worthy things and deserve their support, instead of their undermining.

Our educational system, from the schools to the universities, are actively undermining any sense of loyalty to the traditions, institutions and values of American society.

They are not giving back anything except condemnation, often depicting sins common to the human race around the world as peculiar evils of "our society."

A classic example is slavery, which is repeatedly drummed into our heads - in the schools and in the media - as something unique done by white people to black people in the United States.

The tragic fact is that, for thousands of years of recorded history, people of every race and color have been both slaves and enslavers.

The Europeans enslaved on the Barbary Coast of North Africa alone were far more numerous than all the Africans brought to the United States and to the 13 colonies from which it was formed.

What was unique about Western civilization was that it was the first civilization to turn against slavery, and that it stamped out slavery not only in its own societies but in other societies around the world during the era of Western imperialism.

That process took well over a century, because non-Western societies resisted. White people, as well as black people, were still being bought and sold as slaves, decades after the Emancipation Proclamation freed blacks in the United States.

Those who want to "give back" should give back the truth. It is a debt that is long overdue.

Here's a great collection of Sowell quotes that are worth reading also.

Sowell: "Nothing as mundane as mere evidence can be allowed to threaten a vision so deeply satisfying."

Quote of the day... (Minnesota bridge collapse - updated)

Thomas Sowell is spot-on, as usual:

"The real problem is that the political incentives are to spend the taxpayers’ money on things that will enhance politicians’ chances of getting re-elected. There may be enough money available to maintain bridges and other infrastructure but that same money can have a bigger political pay-off if spent building something new instead of maintaining and repairing existing structures."

Thanks to the Patriot Post for the quote and photo source.

Update: More on the bridge congressional collapse from Sen. Tom Coburn:

...It is undeniable that official Washington has “taken its eye off the ball” with respect to bridge safety, and a host of other issues. Yet, the true structural flaw in our political system is not insufficient spending, but misplaced priorities.

No area better illustrates Congress’ misplaced priorities than pork-barrel spending. The Federal Highway Administration declared the bridge “structurally deficient” in 1990 and directly warned Minnesota officials. Yet, since 1990, Congress has show more devotion to pork-barrel spending than repair work. ...

Read it all.

Are we France?

"Moral paralysis" is a term ... that may be painfully relevant to our own times."

Thomas Sowell is one of my biggest influencers and heroes. If you only have time to follow a few columnists each week, follow him.

His latest is a history lesson, with a frightening exit question: Are we France? Are we morally paralyzed, perhaps fatally?:

... Back in the 1930s, the governments of the democratic countries knew what Hitler was doing -- and they knew that they had enough military superiority at that point to stop his military buildup in its tracks. But they did nothing to stop him.

Instead, they turned to what is still the magic mantra today -- "negotiations."

No leader of a democratic nation was ever more popular than British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain -- wildly cheered in the House of Commons by opposition parties as well as his own -- when he returned from negotiations in Munich in 1938, waving an agreement and declaring that it meant "peace in our time."

We know now how short that time was. Less than a year later, World War II began in Europe and spread across the planet, killing tens of millions of people and reducing many cities to rubble in Europe and Asia. ...

Read it all and make up your own mind.

'An alternative Democratic foreign policy'???

I agree with Thomas Sowell that Nancy Pelosi and the Dems are Playing with Fire:

... Until Nancy Pelosi came along, it was understood by all that we had only one president at a time and -- like him or not -- he alone had the Constitutional authority to speak for this country to foreign nations, especially in wartime.

All that Pelosi's trip can accomplish is to advertise American disunity to a terrorist-sponsoring nation in the Middle East while we are in a war there. That in turn can only embolden the Syrians to exploit the lack of unified resolve in Washington by stepping up their efforts to destabilize Iraq and the Middle East in general. ...

---

All that Pelosi's trip can accomplish
is to advertise American disunity

---

... Indeed, it is monkey business as usual, as Congressional Democrats revel in the power of their new and narrow election victory last year to drag people before committee hearings and posture for the television cameras.

It has been said that the world ends not with a bang but with a whimper. But who would have thought that it could end with political clowning in the shadow of a mushroom cloud?

Allahpundit covered the story a few days ago... more to come.

Update: From AllahPundit...Video: Bush criticizes Pelosi over meeting with Assad.

Update: A Delegation of House Republicans is even more annoying!

Is 'marriage' a thing of the past? It depends on what your definition of 'women' is... (Updated)

"All the News That's Fit to Print" "Manufacturing News to Fit an Ideology."

Thomas Sowell elaborates:

...What was the point? To show that marriage is a thing of the past. As a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle put it: "Women See Less Need for Ol' Ball and Chain."

In other words, marriage is like a prison sentence, complete with the old-fashioned leg irons with a chain connected to a heavy metal ball, so that the prisoner cannot escape.

This picture of marriage and a family as a burden is not peculiar to the New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle. It is common among the intelligentsia of the left.

Negative depictions of marriage and family are common not only in our newspapers but also wherever the left is concentrated, whether in our schools and colleges or on television or in the movies - most famously, in the "Murphy Brown" TV program that Vice President Dan Quayle criticized, provoking a fierce counterattack from the left.

The New York Times was not the first outlet of the left to play fast and loose with statistics in order to depict marriage as a relic of the past. Innumerable sources have quoted a statistic that half of all marriages end in divorce - another conclusion based on creative manipulation of words, rather than on hard facts. ...

Read it all.

Update: The NY Times Ombudsman speaks.

Also, NewsBusters.org covers the price of publishing leaks. Thanks NY Times.

Update: Ben Shapiro discusses the homosexual assault on traditional marriage:

... If gender is meaningless, children do not need both mother and father; a father and a father, two mothers, six fathers and a mother -- any or all may suffice. To homosexual marriage proponents, the fact that only the sexual union between men and women produces children is an unfortunate accident of nature. Would that nature had made mankind completely androgynous, so as to demonstrate the complete and utter homogeneity of all people!

Gender is not meaningless, of course. The radical individualism that denies all distinction between men and women is deeply pernicious. It denies the spiritual in mankind. It denies the obvious physical and spiritual bounty springing from traditional marriage. It also denies to children the benefits of a mother and father.

In one sense, Washington's same-sex advocates do us a favor: They make clear that in order to deny homosexual marriage, we must uphold the beautiful and natural distinctions between men and women. They also make clear that we must uphold the value of heterosexuality over homosexuality. We must take up the gauntlet and, in doing so, vindicate the possibility of a higher spiritual elevation through the deepest possible human relationship.

The old/main-stream media and the homosexual movement are focused on undermining traditional marriage to suit their ideology. Do not underestimate the degree to which they are succeeding.

Some nice quotes from today's Patriot Brief...

From Mark Alexander's Patriot Post:

Thomas Sowell:

“The most fundamental difference between President Bush and his critics has not been in who has made mistakes, because both have. The biggest difference has been that the President has taken a long-run view of the worldwide war on terror, while his critics are seeking a quick fix. Critics claim that there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq. They don’t seem to notice that the terrorists themselves obviously see a clear connection, which they express in both words and deeds. Terrorists are pouring into Iraq, even at the cost of their lives, in order to prevent a free, democratic government from being established in the Middle East. They see victory or defeat in Iraq as having major and long-lasting repercussions throughout the region and even throughout the world.”

Ronald Reagan:

“[A]bortion is not a harmless medical procedure but the taking of the life of a living human being. This tragic and terrible toll continues... Our national commitment to the dignity of all human life must begin with the respect for our most basic civil right: the right to life... America will never be whole as long as the right to life, granted by our Creator, is denied to the unborn. Together we can overturn Roe v. Wade, and end this national tragedy... Each woman who chooses life for her child affirms our reverence for human life and ennobles our society. Each child is a unique, unrepeatable gift, and every child who escapes the violence of abortion is an immeasurable victory for life... Together, with God’s help, we will finish the task and heal our wounded nation.”

Tom Purcell:

“It’s not that I dislike government... I just don’t trust government. Which brings us to the Democrats. Democrats love government. They think government and good intentions can solve all the woes of the world. And now that they’re running Congress, they’re going to try to do just that. They’ll promise to ‘fix’ our health care troubles by having the government take over, which will increase our troubles and limit our health care. They’ll ‘fix’ Social Security by raising taxes and growing the program, only to hurt the economy and damage the program. They’ll ‘fix’ the gap between rich and poor by raising taxes on the rich, which will slow the economy and make all of us poorer—especially the poor. The Democrats will unwittingly unleash a legion of federal meter maids who will regulate, monitor and punish—and unwittingly accomplish the opposite of whatever they set out to accomplish.”

Subscribe to the Patriot Post here.

'Having overwhelming military force on your side, and letting your enemies know that you have the guts to use it, is being genuinely anti-war.'

Thomas Sowell is right to ask... where is the West?:

... Western nations that show any signs of standing up for self-preservation are rare exceptions. The United States and Israel are the only western nations which have no choice but to rely on self-defense -- and both are demonized, not only by our enemies but also by many in other western nations.

Australia recently told its Muslim population that, if they want to live under Islamic law, then they should leave Australia. That makes three western nations that have not yet completely succumbed to the corrosive and suicidal trends of our times.

If and when we all succumb, will the epitaph of western civilization say that we had the power to annihilate our enemies but were so paralyzed by confusion that we ended up being annihilated ourselves?

Politics aside, the clock is ticking. Do we kick the proverbial can down the road, or pick it up and deal with it?

'There is a difference: the Republicans are disappointing and the Democrats are dangerous'... (updated)

(pinned 'til election time unpinned due to election fatigue)

Update #19: Ok... this is getting unwieldy. Last update: Short... Sweet... HamNation and CoulterMania.

The Republicans have been punished. Conservatives have been - and are being - heard. We don't want higher taxes... we don't want liberal judges... we don't want to fold up and go home in the Middle East... we don't want impeachment hearings... federally-funded research on - or cloning of - human embryos... we don't want Socialism. Punish Republicans further in the next primaries... elect them now against the dangerous Democrats.

Update #18: Trying to keep the updates down to a minimum, but if you're following the Michael J. Fox stem cell ad (here's a response worth watching too) debate you must check out this from Scrappleface.

Rush is all over this too, and he's absolutely right and on the money. Listen here noon to 3:00pm EST. Read on Rush today: The Unconscionable Claims of Michael J. Fox. Fox News coverage here.

Rush's e-mail to Katie Couric.

Glenn Beck discusses here.

Update #17: Greg Tinti - VIDEO: Pelosi Pledges No Impeachment If Dems Take Control.

Pelosi is a bullshit salesperson handing out free samples... don't buy it. Turn it off.

Despite what the MSM says, your vote (still) counts.

Update #16: Negative Attacks Divide Conservatives...

For the cause of conservatism to prevail, in the near-term and the long-term, we must renew our commitment to the whole of the conservative agenda. And we must renew our commitment to the civility and mutual respect that the American people have come to expect from our leaders.

Mike Pence in '08.

Update #15: John O'Neill...

Dispirited conservatives and Republicans rightfully appalled at the Cunningham, Abramoff, and Foley scandals should remember history as they contemplate not voting in the 2006 elections because of disillusionment.

Don't Repeat Mistake of 1974

Update #14: Barrons isn't buying the MSM negativity...(h/t staclu)

JUBILANT DEMOCRATS SHOULD RECONSIDER their order for confetti and noisemakers. The Democrats, as widely reported, are expecting GOP-weary voters to flock to the polls in two weeks and hand them control of the House for the first time in 12 years — and perhaps the Senate, as well. Even some Republicans privately confess that they are anticipating the election-day equivalent of Little Big Horn. Pardon our hubris, but we just don’t see it.

Our analysis — based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data — suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber’s 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party’s loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three.

The Republican Party isn't perfect by a loooooong shot, but putting the Dems in power will be devastating... higher taxes and impeachment hearings guaranteed. Punish Republicans? - punish yourself and your kids. We need another conservative on the Supreme Court too!!

Repugnicrats and Dumbicans...there is a difference.

Update #13: How's this for a thought... you go to war with the army party you have, not the army party you wish you had. Where did you come down when Rummy got skewered for those words? If he was right, then my changing the one word applies nicely, no?

Update #12: Victor Davis Hanson on Liberals Gone Wild!:

... The Democrats have not elected congressional majorities in 12 years, and they've occupied the White House in only eight of the last 26 years. The left's current unruliness seems a way of scapegoating others for a more elemental frustration - that they can't gain a national majority based on their core beliefs. More entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, gay marriage, de facto quotas in affirmative action, open borders, abortion on demand, and radical secularism - these liberal issues don't tend to resonate with most Americans. ...

Update #11: Courtesy of Rush... are you a cut and run conservative?

Update #10: In MD... you're either voting for Cardin against Bush (no, George isn't running), or you're going for Steele because Cardin's a liar and Steele is not an establishment guy. Steele is the man.

Update #9: Vote Republican... they suck less, and have at least a chance of not sucking in the foreseeable future.

Update #8: Glenn Beck - What media bias?

Update #7: Why vote Republican? Apparently Larry Elder helped put this together: (hat tip HotAir)



... as a follow-up to this classic:



Update #6: Charlie Rangel - “Future Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.” Please... just say no!

Update #5: Justice Scalia was awesome over the weekend at the ACLU. It was on C-span again last night. I've been looking for video, but C-span links don't seem to work. I found this snippet though:



Frustrated conservatives who are considering a protest non-vote or even a Dem vote should remember the the battle for the Supreme Court is still very much underway, and we won't get more like Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts with the Dems in power. Vote against an "evolving constitution", and maintain/strengthen Republican control. These are consequential times.

A related find from FrontPage:

Former Supreme Court Justice Curtis warned in 1857 that the Constitution would be controlling only if judges interpret it as Scalia advocates. Curtis wrote:

“[W]hen a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have the power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean.”

Update #4: Doug Patton says...

... if you are a disgruntled conservative Republican who knows the issues and understands what is at stake in this election, I have one message for you in this crucial mid-term election: don’t you dare fail to vote next month!

We can still turn this around!!!

Update #3: Matt Lewis...

there is an effort to drive a wedge between conservatives and the GOP. Don't fall for it.

Update #2: I'm with Elizabeth Kantor: Staying the Course

(WARNING: This post will be an impatient rant against conservative impatience.)

Okay, guys. We need to stay the course - and I'm not talking about Iraq.

The conventional wisdom is that Republicans are going to lose the 2008 midterm election because of the Foley scandal. Social conservatives in particular, it's being said, will stay home on election day rather than go to the polls to support the Republicans who have allowed the House of Representatives to be tainted by a sordid sexual scandal - or even vote Democrat.

For any social conservative who's feeling this way, I have one question: Have you completely lost your marbles?

Look, it would be hard to get more socially conservative than I am. I'd be perfectly happy with laws against emailing sexual content to anyone you're not actually married to, let alone to teenaged boys who assist you in your job as a U.S. legislator. I'm in a practically perpetual snit about the mainstreaming of porn and the declining standards of morality in America.

But the voting booth is not the place to indulge your temper, or to idly and carelessly "send a message" that you're frustrated about everything in general, or one irrelevant thing in particular. Your vote is your chance to change the government, not to express yourself.

I myself am a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia. For Senator, I get to vote for George Allen, a man who irritates me in many ways. In particular, and in this very Senate race, he's annoyed me no end by attempting to scare voters off his Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, by painting Webb as insufficiently enthusiastic about women in the military.

Now, you can't be sufficiently insufficiently enthusiastic about female soldiers for me. If I were in charge, I'd immediately purge all the military services of women--except maybe for a Florence Nightingale Navy Nurse's Corps, or some such. I think it's a warning sign of the death of Western civilization that we're sending the mothers of toddlers to fight in our wars.

But am I going to hesitate for one second to vote for George Allen? No, I am not.

Why? Because I know that while the Republican Party is infected with the rot that's destroying our society, the Democratic Party is the Societal Rot Fan Club.

Do we - to take just one very important example - really want a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe vs. Wade? After more than three decades of disappointments, we've finally got a President who will appoint that kind of Court, and a Senate that will confirm the justices he appoints. Let's not quit when we're in sight of the finish line.

Are we serious? Are we going to change the government, and the culture, and the country? Are we - this is the real question - going to act like citizens capable of self-government, or like disappointed children?

Update: Thinking protest vote or want to sit it out? Get ready to pay:

The GOP is swimming in a sewer: Foley, a floundering war, a spate of hit-books published to effect the election, a base that no longer trusts it on border security, spending and a few other things make this a nasty-looking mid-term election. But the Democrats have ridden to the rescue, putting tax increases back on the agenda.

Vote against Democrats... vote Republican, then let's work on the leadership.

I'm a frustrated conservative. Bush has been disappointing on the border, on amnesty, on spending, on tax reform, on government size, and overall for a complete and utter lack of productive communication. I'm frustrated, and as much as I want to teach a lesson to the existing Republican leadership, I'm even more afraid of the damage that a Democrat leadership will do to this country.

I listen and watch Glenn Beck. I listen to Rush, Savage and Sean. I read Thomas Sowell, Mac Johnson, Michelle Malkin, Brent Bozell, John Hawkins, Dennis Prager and Kevin McCollough religiously. I watch Brit Hume and Chris Wallace. I get news from blogs and online magazines. I manage this blog, and contribute to three others. I pay attention and am on top of what's going on in the world... pretty much anyway.

No one that I have seen, heard or read recently has had a better summary of why Conservatives should NOT stay home when it comes time to vote than Thomas Sowell in his recent four-parter "Frivolous Politics"

Part I:

... Even when serious issues are addressed, they can be addressed either seriously or frivolously. If you are content to see life and death issues of war and peace addressed with catch phrases like "chicken hawk" or to see a coalition of nations around the world fighting terrorism referred to as "unilateral" U.S. action because France does not go along, then you are content with frivolity.

You may deserve whatever you get if you vote frivolously in this year's election. But surely the next generation, which has no vote, deserves better.

Part II:

... On foreign policy, Democrats continue to argue as if talking with our enemies is the magic formula. We should keep talking with Iran while they keep building a nuclear bomb, just as the western democracies kept negotiating with Hitler while he kept building up his war machine in preparation for starting World War II.

Today, people ignorant of history - which includes graduates of our most prestigious universities - have no idea how close the western democracies came to losing that war and what an unending nightmare it would have been for the world if Hitler and his Japanese allies had won.

Nor do most of the liberal Democrats, which is to say, almost all Congressional Democrats, seem to have any sense of what an unending nightmare it will be for western nations if Iran and the international terrorists it sponsors have nuclear weapons.

Against that background, those disappointed Republican voters who plan to stay home on election day to protest their elected officials' failings are seeing politics as a way to vent their personal emotions. That is a frivolous self-indulgence in a deadly serious time for this nation.

Part III:

... When the American Civil Liberties Union and liberal judges are able to get criminals freed on flimsy grounds, or prevent hoodlums from being expelled from the public schools, the community most likely to be harmed is the black community.

How then can the Democrats consistently get the lion's share of black votes? And why can't the Republicans make any serious inroads?

Part IV:

... There was a time when we all understood that, whatever we might think of a President, we still had only one President at a time and that wholesale obstruction and undermining of him was obstruction and undermining of the United States in the face of its enemies.

Shrill obstructionist House minority leader Nancy Pelosi obviously does not share that view - and if Congressional Democrats win this election, she will become Speaker of the House.

If Democrats win the Senate as well, then they will have the power to not only impeach the President and Vice President, but also the power to remove them from office. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would then become President Nancy Pelosi.

Please read all four parts of this article if you are considering a protest vote or not voting at all. We can't keep kicking the can down the road with the evil that's developing around us and within us. A Democratic leadership is too dangerous to risk in today's world... for any amount of time.

A great quote round-up...

Courtesy of the Patriot Post...

Winston Churchill:

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Ronald Reagan:

“We Americans are blessed in so many ways. We’re a nation under God, a living and loving God. But Thomas Jefferson warned us, ‘I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.’ We cannot expect Him to protect us in crisis if we turn away from Him in our everyday living. But you know, He told us what to do in II Chronicles. Let us reach out to Him. He said, ‘If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land’.”

Peggy Noonan:

“Free speech means hearing things you like and agree with, and it means allowing others to speak whose views you do not like or agree with. This—listening to the other person with respect and forbearance, and with an acceptance of human diversity—is the price we pay for living in a great democracy. And it is a really low price for such a great thing. We all know this, at least in the abstract. Why are so many forgetting it in the particular?”

Thomas Sowell:

“Although socialism has long claimed to be for the poor, it has probably done more damage, on net balance, to the poor than to the rich. After all, the rich have enough money to leave the country if they think the socialists are going to do them any serious harm. Some of our own rich have already had their money leave the country, to be sheltered from the higher taxes that limousine liberals say we should all pay... The rich have learned to adapt socialist policies to their own benefit. For example, the city of Riviera Beach, Florida, is planning to demolish a working class neighborhood under its power of eminent domain, in order to prepare the way for a marina for yachts, luxury condominiums and an upscale shopping district. What will the city of Riviera Beach get out of all this? More taxes from higher-income people, enabling local politicians to spend more money on programs to attract votes. Meanwhile the rich get rid of lower-income folks without having to pay them the value of their homes and businesses that will be demolished. As in so many other cases, eminent domain is socialism for the rich.”

Mark Steyn:

“I very much doubt, despite the expertise with which the sheep have been rounded up and set baa-ing, that Showtime at the Foley Bergere will pay off in November. There are many legitimate reasons for electors to toss out the Republican Congress, but the notion that they’re a hotbed of gay pedophile enablers is not one of them. Had Foley dug in and attempted to cling on, his GOP colleagues would have been all over TV deploring his behavior, calling on him to step down, expressing outrage, etc. After two or three days, a few lefties might even have piped up to assail the Republican theocrat sexual McCarthyites tormenting the poor chap. Had he actually had sex with congressional pages, affronted gay groups would have pointed out this was perfectly legal in the relevant jurisdictions and would have complained ferociously about the stigmatizing of gay relationships and Democrats would have declared there should be places for all at the American table, especially had Foley done a Jim McGreevey and announced that ‘my truth is I am a gay American.’... In the sense that there’s any ‘child abuse’ going on here, the American people are being treated like children and abused by the politico-media class.”

Sowell on 'Socialism for the Rich' & Getting Better Politicians in Washington...

Dr. Sowell:

Although socialism has long claimed to be for the poor, it has probably done more damage, on net balance, to the poor than to the rich. After all, the rich have enough money to leave the country if they think the socialists are going to do them any serious harm.

Some of our own rich have already had their money leave the country, to be sheltered from the higher taxes that limousine liberals say we should all pay. Meanwhile, the liberal media give them kudos for their selfless advocacy of higher taxes on higher income people, forgetting that these are not taxes on wealth.

---

Most of the people in
the upper income brackets
are not rich and do not
have wealth sheltered offshore.

---

Most of the people in the upper income brackets are not rich and do not have wealth sheltered offshore. They are typically working people who have finally reached their peak earning years after many years of far more modest incomes - and now see much of what they have worked for siphoned off by politicians, to the accompaniment of lofty rhetoric. ...

And here's an older column that I think deserves another read given the news of the day... "Americans Deserve Better Politicians in Washington":

... There is no point complaining about the ineptness, deception or corruption of government while refusing to do anything to change the incentives and constraints which lead to ineptness, deception and corruption.

You are not going to get the most highly skilled or intelligent people in the country, people with real-world experience, while offering them one-tenth or less of what such people can earn in the private sector.

A professor of economics at a leading university earns more than a member of Congress or a justice of the Supreme Court - and a surgeon earns at least twice as much as an economics professor, though still only about a tenth of what a successful corporate executive can make.

How many people in the top layer of their respective professions are going to sacrifice the future of their families - the ability to give their children the best education, the ability to have something to fall back on in case of illness or tragedy, the ability to retire in comfort and with peace of mind - in order to go into politics? ...

He gets into this more in subsequent columns on political corruption... Parts I, II and III.

Read Sowell every week... at Human Events or TownHall. You'll be better for it.

Immigration and the Environment...

Don't blame immigrants, blame self-absorbed politicians:



Thomas Sowell from April of this year:

The same man said all of the following things. Can you guess who it was?

"Our borders have overflowed with illegal immigrants placing tremendous burdens on our criminal justice system, schools and social programs."

"Our federal wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare, food stamps, medical care and other benefits, often without paying taxes."

"Safeguards like welfare and free medical care are in place to boost Americans in need of short-term assistance. These programs were not meant to entice freeloaders and scam artists from around the world."

"Even worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by individuals who are here illegally."

Who said all these things? Pat Buchanan? Bill O'Reilly? Lou Dobbs?

Not even close. These statements were all made by Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, and currently Senate Minority Leader fighting fiercely to protect illegal immigrants from the restrictions proposed in Republican bills in Congress.

When Senator Reid said all those other things, it was 1993. There was no congressional or presidential election that year and it was not the Republicans who were trying to pass an immigration bill. It was Senator Reid who introduced his own immigration bill.

In short, the immigration bill is not just about immigration. It is about politics -- and the stakes are high. Under such conditions, it is not unusual for a politician to rise above principles.

Immigration represents a golden political opportunity for the Democrats to regain power. It is an ideal issue for the Democrats because it unites them and divides the Republicans.

The Republican majority in Congress is split between supporters of President Bush's "guest worker" proposal and those who are serious about controlling our borders and upholding our laws. Meanwhile, the Democrats are united for legalizing illegality.

Under these conditions, the chances that Congress will solve the nation's problem, rather than the politicians' problem, seem slight -- unless the voting public's anger is expressed so clearly and so massively as to outweigh the political intimidation of the pro-illegal immigrant marches.

If the Republicans wimp out, that could so demoralize their base that Republican turnout in the fall elections could decline to the point where Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives.

With California's ultra-liberal Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi as the new Speaker of the House, Democrats would be in hog heaven. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, so even the wild Republican spending of the past few years could be escalated to new heights with Democrats in the majority.

Impeachment charges also originate in the House of Representatives, so Democrats could deal the Republicans another blow by impeaching President Bush. It doesn't matter that he would never be convicted in the Senate.

What matters is that the Republicans would be forced on the defensive and bogged down politically.

Even if a bill of impeachment did not get a majority vote in the House of Representatives, it would get major coverage in the media, which would accomplish the same purpose of damaging the Republicans before the 2008 presidential elections.

In short, the Democrats' goal is not immigration reform but recapturing the White House in 2008. This is clearly demonstrated by the way Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has gone all-out in opposing the kinds of immigration crackdowns that he himself advocated back in 1993, when the political situation was different.

It is all a political charade. At the heart of this charade is a package deal that will allow Washington politicians to be on both sides of the issue -- in favor of the appearance of border control, while making it easier than ever for existing illegal aliens to stay and get citizenship, and allowing more people to cross our borders for their own benefit, rather than ours.

Agonizing.

Our Top-10 National To-do list:

1. Develop and actively push a U.N. resolution requiring Iran and Syria to pay for the cost to rebuild Lebanon. Their sponsorship of Hezbollah, if not their command to Hezbollah, started this war.
   
   
2. Investigate and prosecute as needed, active leaders in the CAIR organization and others like it here in the United States.
   
   
3. Release ANWR and coastal FL and CA to oil drilling.
   
   
4. Proactively destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities and strike Iran as needed to remove them as a threat.
   
   
5. Invest into development of a process to extract oil from oil shale.
   
   
6. Set term limits in Congress.
   
   
7. Increase annual Senate salaries to $2M and annual House salaries to $1M.
   
   
8. Begin building new nuclear energy facilities.
   
   
9. Develop and actively push a U.N. resolution requiring all Iranian and Syrian citizens to immediately vacate southern Lebanon.
   
   
10. Actively encourage states to provide state college tuition for any interested soldier returning from serving in combat overseas.

Newt for President.

AllahPundit kicks ass.

Sowell on Studies...

I read a lot of online columns and articles, and there is definitely a “bang-for-the-buck” effect that draws me to certain authors over others… or at least more frequently.

Sometimes I’ll find outstanding, intelligent and thoughtful articles that just take more to get through. Some of that is certainly that they brush into areas that I may not be as familiar with, but it’s also that their writing isn’t as simple as it can be to get the same point across.

I have to say, that of all the writers I’ve come across, Thomas Sowell is consistently at the very top of the list when it comes to best value. He’s unbelievably easy to read, and always delivers tremendous and insightful arguments... simply.

Here is his latest effort, which happens to come in three parts, is "Studies Prove" and discusses how a healthy scepticism is needed when hearing results of seemingly legitimate studies.

Part I:

It was a valuable experience so early in my career to learn that what "studies prove" is often whatever those who did the studies wanted to prove. Labor Department studies "prove" whatever serves the interest of the Labor Department, just as Agriculture Department studies "prove" whatever serves the Department of Agriculture's interests.

It is the same story on the other side of the Atlantic, where a new book about Britain's criminal justice system exposes the fraudulent methods used to generate statistics about the "success" of various programs of alternatives to imprisonment. The book is titled "A Land Fit for Criminals" by David Fraser.

The numbers may be accurate but the definition of "success" makes them meaningless. When a criminal is put on probation and the probation is not revoked for a violation, that is "success."

Part II:

Nobody can afford the time to check out every claim of what "studies prove." Even with the help of outstanding research assistants, I can only check out some.

However, the big television and print media have ample financial resources to check out claims before they present them to the public as "news." But when "60 Minutes" didn't bother before basing a story about President Bush's national guard service on a forged document, do not look for a lot of zeal for facts when that could kill a juicy story or the political spin accompanying it.

Let's face it. There is not much pay-off to checking original sources.

Part III:

During the same era I was also researching academically successful black schools. I flew across the country to try to get data on one school, talked with board of education officials, jumped through bureaucratic hoops -- and, after all this was done and the dust settled, I still did not get to see one statistic.

Why not? Think about it. Education officials have developed explanations for why they cannot educate black children. For me to write something publicizing outstanding academic results in this particular black school would be to open a political can of worms, leading people to ask why the other schools can't do the same.

Education bureaucrats decided to keep that can sealed.

Also, a glimmer of hope on the minimum wage debate.

Here's a recent tidbit from Newsbusters on a Senate study.

You can say 'tough' all you want and still be a wimp... or a politician.

Thomas Sowell:

Just when it looked like the Senate Republicans had finally gotten the message that the American people in general, and their own supporters in particular, are outraged over amnesty for illegal aliens, some Republican Senators have come up with yet another disguise for amnesty -- and gotten bipartisan support, including Ted Kennedy and John McCain.

Under this new plan, its advocates claim, illegal immigrants would "have to leave the country" and re-apply to come back in legally and get on a path toward citizenship. It sounds good but on closer examination it turns out to be a fraud. ...

The rest... here.

Mac Johnson agrees... and is right.

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Then and now...

by Thomas Sowell:

... What if the people, institutions, and attitudes of today were somehow taken back in time to World War II? What would have been the result? Would we have ended up winning or losing that war?

What about the great cry of the hour, a cease fire?

It so happens that World War II had the biggest cease fire in history. It was called "the phony war" because, although France was officially at war with Germany, the French did very little fighting for months, while the bulk of the German army was in Poland and France had overwhelming military superiority on the western front.

Famed correspondent William L. Shirer reported on the "unreal" western front, with soldiers "on both sides looking but not shooting." German soldiers bathed in the Rhine and waved to French soldiers on the other side, who waved back.

During this period Hitler offered to negotiate peace with France and England.

Kofi Anan would have loved it. ...

The rest... here.

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"Peace" movements create more war: Rhetoric vs. Reality...

Thomas Sowell - Pacifists Versus Peace:

... Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.

Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed Germany.

There is a reason why General Sherman said "war is hell" more than a century ago. But he helped end the Civil War with his devastating march through Georgia -- not by cease fires or bowing to "world opinion" and there were no corrupt busybodies like the United Nations to demand replacing military force with diplomacy.

There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.

"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.

That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places -- but who looks at track records? ...

Read it all... here.

Nothing short of civilization is at stake.

The non-neutral media goes into Beirut: (h/t Bryan)

Another quote from Thomas Sowell:

"Those who keep calling for an end to the 'cycle of violence' are what make such violence more likely. 'World opinion' in general and the United Nations in particular can always be counted on to counsel 'restraint' in response to attacks and 'negotiations' in response to lethal threats... What that means is that those who start trouble will have a lower price to pay than if those they attacked were free to go all out in their counter-attack. Lowering the price to be paid by aggressors virtually guarantees more aggression."

The truth from the land of Israel:

... The 1920 resolution of the League of Nations (forerunner of the U.N.) reaffirmed our entitlement to all of Eretz Yisrael, on both banks of the Jordan, for the purpose of building a Jewish national home in the historical homeland of the Jewish people. It was for this specific purpose that Britain received a Mandate to govern the country, which was then called Palestine. However, in contravention of the international resolution, more than three-fourths of our territory (the Golan Heights and Transjordan) was torn away and handed over to the Arab occupier—in order to appease a prince who’d been left without a share in the spoils of the World War I.

Since then, the Arab occupiers have labored indefatigably to steal our land and annihilate our people. They have gone to war against us repeatedly and have been trounced each time. In our War of Independence, Arab states occupied additional portions of what remained of our national home. We managed to liberate these areas in 1967, in yet another of the wars that were forced on us – the Six-Day War. To this day, we have not demanded the liberation of most of our land, even though it weeps under foreign occupation, Arab occupation. In contrast, our enemies have been conniving, by means of unrelenting terror, cunning, or false propaganda, to evict us from even the small vestige of Eretz Yisrael that we control today. Shamelessly they even destroy archaeological sites in order to blur the truth about the Jewish past in Eretz Yisrael. ...

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Some great quotes...

...from today's Patriot Post:

"The world is a dangerous place to live—not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
—Albert Einstein

"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be."
—Socrates

"Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past."
—Tyron Edwards

"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong."
—Voltaire

"No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion."
—Carrie Chapman Catt

"There is a terrible lot of us who don't think that we come from a monkey, but if there are some people who think that they do, why, it's not our business to rob them of what little pleasure they might get out of imagining it."
—Will Rogers

"Everything our leaders do must be judged by whether it helps or hurts us in defeating terrorists and their state sponsors."
—Newt Gingrich

"It would be dangerous to be in a world without partners. But it would be more dangerous to see friendship where none exists."
—Tony Blankley

"The Increasing Complexity of Everything is good for liberalism (government should be vital, large, demand and bestow much) and not conservatism (government should be smaller, less powerful, less demanding of the treasure and liberty of the citizenry). When everything is a big complicated morass, regular normal people, voters, constituents, become intellectually disheartened. They can also lose sight of core principles."
—Peggy Noonan

"[Sen. Joe] Lieberman isn't only pro-war, he's seen as pro-Bush—a far greater sin... Hatred of Bush drives—or poisons—almost everything in liberal politics now."
—Jonah Goldberg

"Americans in Iraq have found 500 sarin- and mustard-gas-filled artillery shells, live botulinum toxin, cyanide salt, and nearly two tons of uranium... Without threatening intelligence contacts and techniques, the ever-bashful Bush administration owes it to American taxpayers and our Coalition allies to unveil everything it safely can about what we really have found in Iraq."
—Deroy Murdock

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
—Supreme Court Justice William Douglas

"[M]uch of the media treats statements by terrorists and their supporters as true and any denials of wrongdoing by American troops as false and 'a coverup.' These are the same liberal media people who claim to be 'honoring our troops' when they hype every casualty and make a big production of each landmark death, such as the 1000th American killed in Iraq and then the 2000th... We all need to understand the fraudulence of the claim that these media liberals who have been against the military for decades and who have missed no opportunity to smear the military in Iraq are now in the forefront of 'honoring' our troops by rubbing our noses in their deaths, day in and day out. Troops who have won medals for bravery in battle—including one soldier who won a Congressional Medal of Honor at the cost of his life—go unmentioned in most of the mainstream media that is focused on our troops as casualties that they can exploit... Every newspaper and every television commentator has a right to criticize any aspect of the war in Iraq or anywhere else. But when they claim to be reporting the news, that does not mean filtering out whatever goes against their editorial views and hyping unsubstantiated claims that discredit the troops."
—Thomas Sowell

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