WHY AMERICA DOES NOT WANT THE LIBERALS WHO TRIED TO HIJACK OUR COUNTRY

THOMAS SOWELL

Who Shut Down the Government?

You may be surprised by the answer.

THE LEFT'S CENTRAL DELUSION

Thomas Sowell, National Review: Its devotion to central planning has endured from the French Revolution to Obamacare.

Does anyone imagine that the government can find all the embezzlers, drunk drivers or bank robbers in the country?

And does anyone think that this is a reason why the government should stop trying to enforce laws against embezzlement, drunk driving or bank robbery?

DUH.

SOWELL ROCKS!!

(...and he's HOT, too!)

Some people like fake intellectuals such as Obama...I'll take the real thing, anytime:

Thomas Sowell

The Ethnic Flaw 1984 1/2 http://youtu.be/IxH1pCZi4jw

The Ethnic Flaw 1984 2/2 http://youtu.be/nzdJa8NZZ74

The ceiling that never was

The One Thing the National Debt-Ceiling Has Never Done? Put a Ceiling on the Rising National Debt

Democratic talking points contradict empirical evidence

The current controversy over whether to deal with our massive national debt by cutting spending, or whether instead to raise tax rates on "the rich," is a classic example of talking points versus reality.

Most of those who favor simply raising tax rates on "the rich" -- or who say that we cannot afford to allow the Bush "tax cuts for the rich" to continue -- show not the slightest interest in the history of what has actually happened when tax rates were raised to high levels on "the rich," as compared to what has actually happened when there have been "tax cuts for the rich."

As far as such people are concerned, those questions have already been settled by their talking points. Why confuse the issue by digging into empirical evidence about what has actually happened when one policy or the other was followed?

Politics Versus Reality

No one has had more of a mixed and muffled message than Senator John McCain, which is why Barack Obama is President of the United States

Thomas Sowell slaps down moderates like Michael Medved (isn't it about time)?!?

Thomas Sowell: Voices of Moderation

One of the largely untold stories of our time has been the story of how ACORN, Jesse Jackson and other community activists have been able to transfer billions of dollars from banks to their own organizations' causes, with the aid of the federal government...

Thomas Sowell:

How did we reach the point where a city is so polarized that an overwhelming majority of the white vote goes to one candidate and the overwhelming majority of the black vote goes to the opposing candidate?

How did we reach the point where black voters put racial patronage and racial symbolism above the education of their children and the safety of everyone?

There are many reasons but the trend is ominous. One key factor was the creation, back in the 1960s, of a whole government-supported industry of race hustling.

The Politics of Resentment

The point of no return

UPDATE: If Americans fail this November to send packing the growing number of congressional Democrats with a statist-collectivist vision for America, then the country, as Ayn Rand predicted years ago, may well be cooked.

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Thomas Sowell: "...the 2010 election may be the last chance to halt the dismantling of America."

Dan Riehl: "If one day someone asks you, what did you do in the war? The time for answering that question is now, not then. It can only be answered with actions, not words."

Read this, it's very important to the future of our country!

Controversy over Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism"

From Thomas Sowell: Who Is "Fascist"?

Those who put a high value on words may recoil at the title of Jonah Goldberg's new book, "Liberal Fascism." As a result, they may refuse to read it, which will be their loss -- and a major loss.

Those who value substance over words, however, will find in this book a wealth of challenging insights, backed up by thorough research and brilliant analysis.

This is the sort of book that challenges the fundamental assumptions of its time -- and which, for that reason, is likely to be shunned rather than criticized.

Because the word "fascist" is often thrown around loosely these days, as a general term of abuse, it is good that "Liberal Fascism" begins by discussing the real Fascism, introduced into Italy after the First World War by Benito Mussolini...



Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" is too rich a book to be summarized in a newspaper column. Get a copy and start re-thinking the received notions about who is on "the left" and who is on "the right." It is a book for people who want to think, rather than repeat rhetoric.

Over at the History News Network, a few serious historians and a few pretend ones launched a bizarre and at times delusionally paranoid attack on my book — two years after it came out...

Here is an except from Jonah Goldberg's rebuttal:

For those who don’t know: I contend that in America (unlike Europe in important respects) “the right” is defined by two pillars: religious and cultural traditionalism on the one side and classical liberalism or economic libertarianism on the other. We can get hung up on the labels, but it is fair to say that people who are very culturally conservative are usually identified as “right-wing” and those who are very libertarian on economic matters are dubbed right-wing as well. Modern conservatives, for the most part, adhere to the “fusionist” school which tries to marry both traditionalism and laissez-faire in one coherent vision. Meanwhile, the Nazis – and, to a lesser extent, the Italian Fascists – rejected both of these worldviews while embracing statism. In my book (literally and figuratively) that puts you on the left. To date no one has successfully rebutted this argument.

Read the whole rebuttal...

What is "historic" is that this will be the first administration to show that it doesn't care one bit what the public wants or doesn't want

In short, this is not about the public's health. It is about Obama's ego and his chance to impose his will and leave a legacy.

This is not the only massive legislation to be rushed to passage in Congress and then left to go into effect slowly. The same political formula was used earlier, to pass the "stimulus" bill to spend hundreds of billions of dollars that the government doesn't have-- and that may well amount to more than a trillion dollars when the interest on the debt it creates is added, for this and the next generation to pay off.

Legislation is not the only sign of this administration's contempt for the intelligence of the public and for the safeguards of democratic government.

The appointment of White House "czars" to make policy across a wide spectrum of issues-- unknown people who get around the Constitution's requirement of Senate confirmation for Cabinet members-- is yet another sign of the mindset that sees the fundamental laws and values of this country as just something to get around, in order to impose the will of an arrogant elite.

Unhealthy Arrogance

What Has Obama Accomplished?

What Has Obama Accomplished?

Nancy Morgan
RightBias.com
December 11, 2009

Making the rounds of conservative talk shows lately is the question, "What has Obama accomplished so far?" The question is asked of Obama supporters and the answers range from 'abolishing lobbyists' to 'securing world peace' to 'lowering taxes.'

One thing all answers have in common: They are all grounded in perception as opposed to reality.

Obama has accomplished the amazing feat of convincing millions of Americans that black is white, that cold is hot, that the bad economy is the fault of George W. Bush, and the only things standing between America and peace on earth are those darn Republicans and greedy capitalists.

As author Thomas Sowell points out in 'Is Reality Optional ?' social history in the last 30 years has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. And no-where is this more evident than in the 'change' Obama is foisting on the American people.

The empty rhetoric of 'social justice' and 'compassion' is convincingly and successfully being used to justify ever more ludicrous social policies, which just happen to come with a huge price tag and more government control.

Ignored by the left and the media, however, is the inconvenient fact that every single policy promoted by Obama and passed by congress has been a dismal failure. From the jobs 'stimulus' package that has cost taxpayers a whopping $236,436 per job created - to the the 'cash for clunkers' - to the $61 billion bucks taxpayers just lost through the AIG and auto industry bailout.

Add in the $75 billion mortgage relief program to stem the largely government caused 'foreclosure crisis.' This program has helped a grand total of 31,000 borrowers to date, a paltry 4% of the 760,000 who have applied.

Despite the dismal failures of these policies, Obama and his cohorts continue advocating more of the same. As Dr. Sowell points out, "The anointed are often wrong but never in doubt."

Though 80% of Americans are happy with their health insurance, Obama has declared a health care crisis. Obama and congress have devoted most of the year to imposing government run health care on all citizens, despite the fact that 61% of Americans oppose it.

Though evidence has recently surfaced undermining the dire claims of global warming, our elected elites continue to ignore relevant science, insisting that a massive redistribution of our wealth is needed in order to pay an imagined 'climate debt' to third world countries. Meanwhile, record unemployment and rising fees and taxes continue to devastate businesses and families across the nation. The exception are federal workers, who just got a 2% pay raise.

As Democrat leaders and their allies take to the airwaves denouncing corporate greed, our public servants are scrambling to enact policies that enable them to extort an ever increasing portion of the wealth created by American workers. In the process, severely undermining the rule of law and ignoring the limitations imposed by our Constitution.

The Obama administration has plunged America into debt to the tune of a record $12 trillion dollars. That's $39,000 owed by every man woman and child in America. And there is no end in sight.

House Democrats just passed a $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill to fund the federal government. This bill includes $2 billion for 'climate' research, major spending boosts for domestic agencies and foreign aid. It also includes more than 5,200 pork barrel projects costing $3.9 billion. On top of that, Democrats are preparing to raise the federal debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion before New Year’s.

Obama's policies are destroying the dollar and bankrupting America. Moody's just issued a warning that our triple A rating is in danger. Our president is also in the process of ceding American sovereignty to unaccountable world bodies like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

What Obama has accomplished is astounding. He has managed in the short space of one year to dramatically alter the historical focus on individual rights and liberties to an ephemeral concept that focuses on government primacy.

Due to Obama's charisma and his skill in manipulating the system and redefining words to fit transient meanings, many Americans continue to believe Obama's rhetoric, willfully ignoring the underlying reality. Their belief has taken on a religious fervor based on faith and emotion and any facts to the contrary are summarily dismissed. After all, "Obama won."

Once again, Thomas Sowell says it best: "We may be entering an era where the greatest dangers to the survival of Western civilization will come from internal social deterioration. Other great civilizations have declined and collapsed. We may be the first, however, to sink slowly into the quagmire, still beaming from ear to ear in self-congratulation at how 'innovative' we are in our social policies."

Obama is a dangerous man. He has convinced millions of Americans that they are entitled to the fruits of another man's labor. Virtually all of his policies to date have been designed to foster a dependence on government. But what the government gives, the government can take. As millions of enslaved peoples across the globe could attest - if they were allowed.


Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for "RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina

Author Bio

Article may be reprinted, with attribution.
http://rightbias.com/news/121109done.aspx

Thomas Sowell On Economics Of Medical Care

Readers of Thomas Sowell's columns in IBD don't have to be told why he is considered one of America's greatest thinkers — maybe the greatest.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet has called him "our greatest contemporary philosopher," an opinion that British historian Paul Johnson shares in his book "A History of the American People."

Besides his weekly newspaper column, Sowell has written 43 books — 10 in the last five years — two monographs, 87 articles in periodicals and books, and 33 book reviews.

His latest two books, "The Housing Boom and Bust" and "Applied Economics," came out this year. The latter, subtitled "Thinking Beyond Stage One," is one of six he has written on economics.

Dr. Sowell has granted IBD permission to run one of the chapters of "Applied Economics" — "The Economics of Medical Care" — in its entirety. We are doing so because of its relevance to the debate over health care reform. The chapter will run in nine parts over the next week and a half. The first part starts below and continues in the Issues & Insights section, where the other eight parts will appear.

Sowell was born in North Carolina in 1930 and reared in Harlem. After dropping out of high school, he was drafted into the military and served in the Marines during the Korean War.

During his 20s, when he was a self-described Marxist, he attended and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a B.A. in economics. He also has a master's in economics from Columbia and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

He has taught at Howard University, Cornell, Brandeis, Amherst and UCLA, and is now the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at Stanford's Hoover Institution.

IBD Exclusive Series:
Thomas Sowell on The Economics of Medical Care

FOR PARENTS WITH KIDS IN SCHOOL

Please read: From the Department of Education

I happened to catch brilliant African-American economist Thomas Thowell on the radio this morning and, regarding Obama's speech to the kids on Tuesday, September 8th he said he was immediately reminded of Hitler's Youth and that "all the dictators want to get their hands on the kids!"

Thomas Sowell: "Like so many before him who have ruined countries around the world, Obama has a greatly inflated idea of his own capabilities..."

This is a president on a mission to remake American society in every aspect, by whatever means are necessary and available. That requires taking all kinds of decisions out of the hands of ordinary Americans and transferring them to Washington elites-- and ultimately the number one elite, Barack Obama himself.

Like so many before him who have ruined countries around the world, Obama has a greatly inflated idea of his own capabilities and the prospects of what can be accomplished by rhetoric or even by political power. Often this has been accompanied by an ignorance of history, including the history of how many people before him have tried similar things with disastrous results.

Read the whole thing

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste

What Are They Buying?" by Thomas Sowell

What is really going on in Washginton?

No matter how many times President Barack Obama tells us that these "extraordinary times" call for "swift action," the kind of economic policies he is promoting take effect very slowly, no matter how quickly the legislation is rushed through Congress. It is the old Army game of hurry up and wait.

If the Beltway politicians aren't really trying to solve this crisis as quickly as they could, what are they trying to do?

One important clue may be a recent statement by President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, that "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."

This is the kind of cynical revelation that sometimes slips out, despite all the political pieties and spin. Crises have long been seen as great opportunities to expand the federal government's power while the people are too scared to object and before any opposition can get organized.

That is why there is such haste to do things that will take effect slowly.

What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending? They are buying what politicians are most interested in-- power.

Be careful what you wish for:

This administration and Congress are now in a position to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression of the 1930s-- use a crisis of the times to create new institutions that will last for generations.

To this day, we are still subsidizing millionaires in agriculture because farmers were having a tough time in the 1930s. We have the Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae") taking reckless chances in the housing market that have blown up in our faces today, because FDR decided to create a new federal housing agency in 1938.

Who knows what bright ideas this administration will turn into permanent institutions for our children and grandchildren to try to cope with?

How can this be?

Anyone who follows the media has probably heard many times that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and incomes of the population in general are stagnating.

Moreover, those who say such things can produce many statistics, including data from the Census Bureau, which seem to indicate that.

On the other hand, income tax data recently released by the Internal Revenue Service seem to show the exact opposite: People in the bottom fifth of income-tax filers in 1996 had their incomes increase by 91% by 2005.

The top 1% — "the rich" who are supposed to be monopolizing the money, according to the left — saw their incomes decline by a whopping 26%.

Meanwhile, the average taxpayers' real income rose by 24% between 1996 and 2005.

How can all this be? How can official statistics from different agencies of the same government — the Census Bureau and the IRS — lead to such radically different conclusions?

Media Choose Data That Fit Their Notions

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

After this man has wrecked the economy and destroyed constitutional law with his judicial appointments, what can he do for an encore? He can cripple the military and gamble America’s future on his ability to sit down with enemy nations and talk them out of causing trouble...Senator Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, has for years shown the same easy-way-out mindset.

Read the whole thing

Historic...and catastrophic

From Thomas Sowell:

Some elections are routine, some are important and some are historic. If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic-- and catastrophic.

Find out why here