I became acquainted with Thomas Sowell a year ago after returning from China just as the Covid-19 pandemic was infecting the World and the US Election year was entering ‘warp velocity’. Sowell is an economist, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, which is a conservative American public policy research institution that “promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government.” This fellow is sharp and has written several books demonstrating his smarts. I suspect we will need to read one or more of his books in order to fully understand his conservatism. All this unfolds as we have Joe Biden’s Democratic ‘liberal’ party assuming ‘control’ of the three branches of Government. I suspect Republicans will soon come to the conclusion that Donald Trump was an ‘outlier’ and begin ‘praying in tongues’ that their party is not dead and can rise from its ashes.
There were 11 Blog entries with Trump’s name in the title and this is the first with Biden’s name in the title, one down, really – 10 to go! I hope I live this long. These will not be presented chronologically but by what appear to be unfolding topics and we begin with Sowell tying to educate Joe Biden, which will be a difficult task, may not be possible, however, we will be witnessing in real-time, up-close, in-your-face – a real danger just ahead. We will end with Sowell speaking about “Kamala Harris’ Communist Video” – today our Putin Scare. Okay, give me a break, tiring out a dramatic writing style. What you think Barry?
Thomas Sowell educates Joe Biden
Thomas Sowell on why Joe Biden must not become President
Thomas Sowell and a Conflict of Visions
Published on Nov 4, 2008 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. In politics, visions are either constrained or unconstrained. A closer look at the statements of both McCain and Obama reveals which vision motivates their policy positions, particularly as they pertain to the war, the law, and economics.
Thomas Sowell on the Vulgar Pride of Intellectuals
Published on May 9, 2012 Peter Robinson talks to economist Thomas Sowell about his book “Intellectuals and Society.” Robinson and Sowell discuss the fact that intellectuals play a disproportionate role in society, as evidenced by linguist Noam Chomsky’s influence on liberal politics. Is a fancy education a high-speed rail ticket to fallacy? Find out as Professor Sowell discusses the pride and fallacies of the intellectuals, in addition to the unused brilliance of the masses.
Thomas Sowell on Noam Chomsky, Cornel West and Other left-wing Intellectuals
Thomas Sowell on the Origins of Economic Disparities
Recorded on April 1, 2019 Is discrimination the reason behind economic inequality in the United States? Thomas Sowell dismisses that question with a newly revised edition of his book Discrimination and Disparities. He sits down with Peter Robinson to discuss the long history of disparities among humans around the world and throughout time. He argues that discrimination has significantly less of a role to play in inequality than contemporary politicians give it credit for, and that something as incontrovertible as birth order of children has a more significant and statistically higher impact on success than discrimination. He discusses why parental attention is the most important aspect of a child’s intellectual development. Sowell goes on to break down different minority groups around the world who went on to have more economic and political success than their majority counterparts, such as the Indians in East Africa, Jewish people in Eastern Europe, Cubans in the United States, and the Chinese in Malaysia. He argues that there is an underlying assumption that if discrimination was absent equality would prevail, which historically has been proven wrong. Sowell goes on to discuss changes in crime rates and poverty since the expansion of US welfare programs in the 1960s and how this has had a huge impact on the success of African Americans. He talks about his own experience growing up in New York, how housing projects used to be considered a positive place to live, and his experience as the first member of his family to enter the seventh grade. Robinson asks Sowell his thoughts on the case for reparations currently being made in Congress, and Sowell presents an argument about why a plan for reparations is not only illogical but also impossible to implement, with so many US citizens’ ancestors arriving long after the Civil War. He also explains that slavery was common throughout the known world for thousands of years and that abolition movements didn’t begin anywhere in the world until the late 18th century. He reminds us that the United States was not the only country guilty of participating in slavery and yet is the only country debating reparations.
We might as well begin this new Presidency thinking about Thomas Sowell on Kamala Harris’ Communist Video which premiered Nov 11, 2020 and has Sowell debunking Harris’ video about using government power to achieve equality among groups. 0:00 – Intro 0:18 – How inequality is the rule, not the exception 3:27 – Why Using government power to create equality among groups is a bad idea.
This has been a lot to absorb! If I were back at UND, CUHK, NTU, UIBE, NDSU, UMary, or Concordia, I would have shown these clips in class, discussed them with students, and then together asked us to each write a 5-page 1.5 spaced paper on our experience. I now need, no will write this paper.