Thomas Sowell from Creators Syndicate

Suicide of the West? for 09/01/2009

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Britain's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi— the Libyan terrorist whose bomb blew up a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people— is galling enough in itself. But it is even more profoundly troubling as a sign of a larger mood that has been growing in the Western democracies in our time.

In ways large and small, domestically and internationally, the West is s ...

Updated: Tue Sep 01, 2009

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Listening to a Liar for 09/08/2009

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The most important thing about what anyone says are not the words themselves but the credibility of the person who says them.

The words of convicted swindler Bernie Madoff were apparently quite convincing to many people who were regarded as knowledgeable and sophisticated. If you go by words, you can be led into anything.

No doubt millions of people will be listening to the words ...

Updated: Tue Sep 08, 2009

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Listening to a Liar: Part II for 09/10/2009

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

"Hubris-laden charlatans" was the way a recent e-mail from a reader characterized the Obama administration. That phrase seems especially appropriate for the Charlatan-in-Chief, Barack Obama, whose speech to a joint session of Congress was both a masterpiece of rhetoric and a shameless fraud.

To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without addin ...

Updated: Thu Sep 10, 2009

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Fables for Adults for 09/15/2009

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Many years ago, as a small child, I was told one of those old-fashioned fables for children. It was about a dog with a bone in his mouth, who was walking on a log across a stream.

The dog looked down into the water and saw his reflection. He thought it was another dog with a bone in his mouth— and it seemed to him that the other dog's bone was bigger than his. He decided that he wa ...

Updated: Tue Sep 15, 2009

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Choosing The Right College for 09/22/2009

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

There is so much for high school seniors and their parents to know about colleges that they not only need to get a lot of information but also need to make sure it is the right kind of information.

A number of college guides have useful information but, unfortunately, the best-known and most pretentious of these guides — "America's Best Colleges"— is grossly mislead ...

Updated: Tue Sep 22, 2009

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The Underdogs for 09/22/2009

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

It is a good reflection on Americans that they tend to be on the side of the underdog. But it is often hard to tell who is in fact the underdog, or why.

Many years ago, there was a big, lumbering catcher named Ernie Lombardi whose slowness afoot was legendary. Someone once said that not only was Ernie Lombardi the slowest man who ever played major league baseball, whoever was second slow ...

Updated: Tue Sep 22, 2009

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The Brainy Bunch for 09/29/2009

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

It was, after all, Franklin D. Roosevelt's brilliant "brains trust" advisers whose policies are now increasingly recognized as having prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s, while claiming credit for e ...

Updated: Tue Sep 29, 2009

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Random Thoughts for 10/06/2009

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

Upon learning that the Constitution requires a president to be a natural born citizen, a college student said: "What makes a natural born citizen any more qualified than one born by C-section?"

Airlines that keep passengers trapped for hours in planes sitting on the runway should be prosecuted for unlawful imprisonment.

When p ...

Updated: Tue Oct 06, 2009

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A Letter from a Child for 10/06/2009

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Recent videos of American children in school singing songs of praise for Barack Obama were a little much, especially for those of us old enough to remember pictures of children singing the praises of dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

But you don't need a dictator to make you feel queasy about the manipulation of children. The mindset that sees children in school as an opportunity fo ...

Updated: Tue Oct 06, 2009

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Magic Numbers in Politics for 10/13/2009

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, two Russian economists who had never lived in a country with a free market economy understood something about market economies that many others who have lived in such economies all their lives have never understood. Nikolai Shmelev and Vladimir Popov said: "Everything is interconnected in the world of prices, so that the smallest change in one element ...

Updated: Tue Oct 13, 2009

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Magic Numbers in Politics: Part II for 10/13/2009

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

It is understandable that many people do not pay nearly as much attention to political issues as they do to practical decisions that they have to make in their own lives. For one thing, they have only one vote among millions, so their influence on what policies the government will follow is in no way comparable to the weight of their decisions in their own personal affairs.

One consequen ...

Updated: Tue Oct 13, 2009

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To Sue or Not for 10/20/2009

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

To sue or not to sue? That is the question.

After racist statements were made up out of thin air and then attributed to Rush Limbaugh, these were the options he had.

It is easy for me to understand that these are not simple choices because I have faced those options as well. Recently there have been a number of columns made up by others and put on the Internet with my name on them ...

Updated: Tue Oct 20, 2009

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Dismantling America for 10/27/2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? ...

Updated: Tue Oct 27, 2009

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Dismantling America: Part II for 10/29/2009

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Many years ago, at a certain academic institution, there was an experimental program that the faculty had to vote on as to whether or not it should be made permanent.

I rose at the faculty meeting to say that I knew practically nothing about whether the program was good or bad, and that the information that had been supplied to us was too vague for us to have any basis for voting, one wa ...

Updated: Thu Oct 29, 2009

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The "Costs" of Medical Care: Part III for 11/03/2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

One of the strongest talking points of those who want a government-run medical care system is that we simply cannot afford the high and rising costs of medical care under the current system.

First of all, what we can afford has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of producing anything. We will either pay those costs or not get the benefits. Moreover, if we cannot afford the quantity a ...

Updated: Tue Nov 03, 2009

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The "Costs" of Medical Care: Part II for 11/03/2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Although it is cheaper to buy a pint of milk than to buy a quart of milk, nobody considers that to be lowering the price of milk. Although it is cheaper to buy a lower quality of all sorts of goods than to buy a higher quality, nobody thinks of that as lowering the price of either lower or higher quality goods.

Yet, when it comes to medical care, there seems to be remarkably little atten ...

Updated: Tue Nov 03, 2009

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The "Costs" of Medical Care: Part IV for 11/03/2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

What is so wrong with the current medical system in the United States that we are being urged to rush headlong into a new government system that we are not even supposed to understand, because this legislation is to be rushed through Congress before even the Senators and Representatives have a chance to read it?

Among the things that people complain about under the present medical care s ...

Updated: Tue Nov 03, 2009

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The "Costs" of Medical Care for 11/03/2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

We are incessantly being told that the cost of medical care is "too high"— either absolutely or as a growing percentage of our incomes. But nothing that is being proposed by the government is likely to lower those costs, and much that is being proposed is almost certain to increase the costs.

There is a fundamental difference between reducing costs and simply shifting cos ...

Updated: Tue Nov 03, 2009

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Random Thoughts for 11/10/2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

If politicians stopped meddling with things they don't understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.

It was fascinating to see Barack Obama warning us not to leap to conclusions about the killings at Fort Hood, Texas— after the way he leaped to conclusions over the ar ...

Updated: Tue Nov 10, 2009

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Bowing to "World Opinion" for 11/17/2009

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

In the string of amazing decisions made during the first year of the Obama administration, nothing seems more like sheer insanity than the decision to try foreign terrorists, who have committed acts of war against the United States, in federal court, as if they were American citizens accused of crimes.

Terrorists are not even entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention, much le ...

Updated: Tue Nov 17, 2009

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