Thomas Sowell is feeling depressed:
Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential candidates, it is time for a sober—if not grim—assessment of where we are.
Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When election day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.
The only real quibble I can think of is that 1976, the Carter-Ford race, wasn’t exactly brimming with adequacy either.
Hubbard posted this at 8:06 AM EDT on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, The Conservative Sowell
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Insightful:
Barack Obama’s own account of his life shows that he consciously sought out people on the far left fringe. In college, “I chose my friends carefully,” he said in his first book, “Dreams From My Father.”
These friends included “Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk rock performance poets” — in Obama’s own words — as well as the “more politically active black students.” He later visited a former member of the terrorist Weatherman underground, who endorsed him when he ran for state senator.
Obama didn’t just happen to encounter Jeremiah Wright, who just happened to say some way out things. Jeremiah Wright is in the same mold as the kinds of people Barack Obama began seeking out in college — members of the left, anti-American counter-culture.
We know that guy. He was that guy in college who didn’t personally have a Che flag, but sometimes gave a “Right on!” to the guy who did. He thought those people were cool and interesting, and an exciting diversion from what he thought was his white bread world. They were authentic in a way he wasn’t, so he sought to be around them. And in case you were curious, I really didn’t like that guy at college either.
I don’t think this is inconsistent with my thesis that he’s the That’s-a-valid-point professor. I think that guy I just described wants to be the That’s-a-valid-point professor when he grows up. Because that’s the best way to keep hanging out with the “Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk rock performance poets” and the “more politically active black students” without facing the consequences of being one of them yourself. He may not be one of them, but he still thinks those people have valid points that need to be recognized.
Apollo posted this at 3:19 PM EDT on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, The Conservative Sowell
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How one deals with racists is instructive. In the 1980 campaign, Ronald Reagan received a very troubling endorsement: from the KKK. He publicly repudiated them, saying he would rather lose the race than win on the strength of a racial appeal.
Now we’re seeing Barack Obama deal with Jeremiah Wright. My reaction to the matter is similar to Thomas Sowell’s:
While talking about bringing us together and deploring “divisive” actions, Senator Obama has for 20 years been a member of a church whose minister, Jeremiah Wright, has said that “God Bless America” should be replaced by “God damn America” — among many other wild and even obscene denunciations of American society, including blanket racist attacks on whites.
[snip]
In just what context does “God damn America” mean something different?
Spin number two is that Barack Obama says he didn’t hear the particular things that Jeremiah Wright said that are now causing so much comment.
It wasn’t just an isolated remark. Nor were the enthusiastic responses of the churchgoers something which suggests that this anti-American attitude was news to them or something that they didn’t agree with.
If Barack Obama was not in church that particular day, he belonged to that church for 20 years. He made a donation of more than $20,000 to that church.
In all that time, he never had a clue as to what kind of man Jeremiah Wright was? Give me a break!
[snip]
Equality means that a black demagogue who has been exposed as a phony deserves exactly the same treatment as a white demagogue who has been exposed as a phony.
The raison d’etre of Barack Obama’s candidacy was that he would heal racial divides and that, though he had little experience, he had the good judgment needed in a good president. The Jeremiah Wright mess has called into question the Obama campaign’s reason for existence.
What Obama must do in his speech tomorrow is somehow prove that he’s not a phony. I’m not sure it’s possible. But that’s for voters in Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Oregon, etc., to decide.
Hubbard posted this at 9:06 AM EDT on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 as Audacity of Hype, The Conservative Sowell
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Thomas Sowell has an interesting question for those of us that believe we should pull out of Iraq immediately:
“And then what?” That is the question which should be asked of those who are demanding that we pull out of Iraq now.
No candid answer should be expected from cynical politicians like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who have their bets riding big time on an American defeat in Iraq, as their ticket to winning the 2008 elections.
But that question should be answered by those who honestly and sincerely think that a troop pullout is the answer to the Iraq problem. What do they think will happen if we do?
That question is studiously avoided by those in politics and the media who urge pulling out.
Those who deal in talking points may believe, or claim to believe, that there will be no further repercussions. But those who have to confront the real world know that pulling out now is a formula for a bigger disaster than anything that has already happened in Iraq.
Reminds me of Toms question to the morons sporting the bumper sticker “War is Not The Answer” - “Ok, so what is the answer?”
Jamie posted this at 12:53 PM EDT on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 as The Conservative Sowell
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Thomas Sowell on Nifong’s disbarment:
The sad and tragic fact is that the civil-rights movement, despite its honorable and courageous past, has over the years degenerated into a demagogic hustle, promoting the mindless racism they once fought against.
Jamie posted this at 3:22 PM EDT on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 as The Conservative Sowell
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Thomas Sowell as an astute analysis of the problems with a guest worker program in the United States:
What may be especially relevant to the situation in the United States is that the immigrant parents and grandparents of the violent youths came to France with a very different view.
They were glad to be in France, which for most was a big improvement over where they came from. “They were better Frenchmen than either their children or grandchildren,” Dalrymple noted.
They would never have booed the French national anthem at a public event, as the later generations did — and as the American national anthem has been booed in Los Angeles.
The later generations were not born in the third-world countries from which their parents and grandparents escaped. They were born in France, and resented not having the same prosperity as other Frenchmen.
I have lived in a country with a successful guest worker program, Singapore. This is probably the model most Open Borders folks would like to point to as an example of a legitimate, successful and safe guest worker program. There are two problems with that analogy: 1) Singapore is an island nation with vary easily controlled borders and 2) Singapore has barely 1/100th the population of the United States.
Sowell is very astute to draw parallels between the recent ethnic violence in France and the potential for such violence from an entrenched underclass here in the US. I only hope that recent rumors of a revival of Bush’s immigration bill are just that, rumors.
Jamie posted this at 1:54 PM EDT on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 as The Melting Pot Boils Over, The Conservative Sowell
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