Parker, Williams, Sowell...
Political T***slations
Thomas Sowell / Nov 25, 2015
It is amazing how many different ways the same thing can be said, creating totally different impressions. For example, when President Barack Obama says that defeating ISIS is going to take a long time, how is that different from saying that he is going to do very little, very slowly? It is saying the same thing in different words.
Defenders of the administration's policies may cite how many aerial sorties have been flown by American planes against ISIS. There have been thousands of these sorties, which sounds very impressive. But what is less impressive -- and more indicative -- is that, in most of those sorties, the planes have not fired a single shot or dropped a single bomb.
Why? Because the rules of engagement are so restrictive that in most circumstances there is little that the pilot is allowed to do, unless circumstances are just right, which they seldom are in any war.
Moreover, the thousands of sorties being flown are still a small fraction of the number of sorties flown in the same amount of time during the Iraq war, when American leaders were serious about getting the war won.
Politics produces lots of words that can mean very different things, if you stop and think about them. But politicians depend on the fact that many people don't bother to stop and think about them.
We often hear that various problems within the black community are "a legacy of s***ery." That phrase is in widespread use among people who believe in the kinds of welfare state programs that began to dominate government policies in the 1960s.
Blaming social problems today on "a legacy of s***ery" is another way of saying, "Don't blame our welfare state policies for things that got worse after those policies took over. Blame what happened in earlier centuries."
Nobody would accept that kind of cop-out, if it were expressed that way. But that is why it is expressed differently, as a "legacy of s***ery."
If we were being serious, instead of being political, we could look at the facts. Were the kinds of problems we are concerned about in black communities today as bad during the first century after s***ery or in the first generation after the vastly expanded welfare state?
What about children being raised with no father in the home? As of 1960, nearly a century after s***ery ended, 22 percent of black children were being raised in single-parent families. Thirty years later, 67 percent of all black children were being raised in single-parent families.
What about violence? As of 1960, homicide rates among non-white males had gone down by 22 percent during the preceding decade. But, during the decade of the 1960s, that trend suddenly reversed, and the homicide rate shot up by 76 percent. The welfare state vision was often part of a larger, non-judgmental social vision that was lenient on criminals and hard on the police.
Few people today know that marriage rates and rates of labor force participation were once higher among b****s than among w****s -- all of this during the first century after s***ery. In later years, a reversal occurred, largely in the wake of the welfare state expansions that began in the 1960s.
Another fashionable phrase that evades any need for evidence is "disparate impact" -- a legal phrase accepted in the Supreme Court of the United States, despite being downright silly when you stop and think about it.
Whenever there is some standard for being hired, promoted or admitted to a college, some groups may meet that standard more so than others. One way of expressing that is to say that more of the people from group X meet the standard than do people from group Y. But politically correct people express the same thing by saying that the standard has a "disparate impact" on group Y. Once it is expressed this way, it is the standard that is suspect -- and whoever set that standard has to prove a negative, namely that he is not guilty of discrimination against group Y. Often nobody can prove anything, so the accused loses -- or else settles out of court.
Stupid? No. It takes very clever people to make something like that sound plausible. But it also requires people who don't bother to stop and think, who enable them to get away with it.
Free Speech
Walter E. Williams / Nov 25, 2015
Recent events at the University of Missouri, Yale University and some other colleges demonstrate an ongoing ignorance and/or contempt for the principles of free speech. So let's examine some of those principles by asking: What is the true test of one's commitment to free speech?
Contrary to the widespread belief of tyrants among college students, professors and administrators, the true test of one's commitment to free speech does not come when one permits people to be free to express those ideas that he finds acceptable. The true test of one's commitment to free speech comes when he permits others to say those things that he finds deeply offensive. In a word, free speech is absolute, or nearly so.
No doubt a campus pseudo-intellectual, particularly in a law school, will chime in suggesting that free speech is not absolute, bringing up the canard that you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is not a free speech issue. A person who shouts "fire" violates the implied contract that theatergoers have to watch a performance undisturbed. Of course, if all patrons were informed when they purchased tickets that someone would falsely shout "fire" during the performance, there would be little problem.
Then there is speech called defamation, which is defined as the action of making a false spoken or written statement damaging to a person's reputation. Defamation is criminalized, but should it be? That question might be best answered by asking: Does your reputation belong to you? In other words, are the thoughts that other people have about you your property?
The principles that apply to one's commitment to free speech also apply to one's commitment to freedom of association. Like the true test of one's commitment to free speech, the true test of one's commitment to freedom of association does not come when he permits people to associate in ways he deems acceptable. The true test of one's commitment to freedom of association comes when he permits people to be free to associate -- or not to associate -- in ways he deems offensive.
Permitting discriminatory association practices in publicly owned facilities -- such as libraries, parks and beaches -- should not be permitted. That is because they are taxpayer-financed and everyone should have a right to equal access. But denying freedom of association in private clubs, private businesses and private schools violates people's right to freely associate.
Christian Americans have been prosecuted for their refusal to cater same-sex weddings. Those who support such attacks might ask themselves whether they would also seek prosecution of an owner of a Jewish delicatessen who refused to provide services for a neo-N**i affair. Should a black catering company be forced to cater a Ku Klux Klan affair? Should the NAACP be forced to open its membership to r****t skinheads? Should the Congressional Black Caucus be forced to open its membership to white members of Congress?
Liberty requires bravery. To truly support free speech, one has to accept that some people will say and publish things he finds deeply offensive. Similarly, to be for freedom of association, one has to accept that some people will associate in ways that he finds deeply offensive, such as associating or not associating on the basis of race, sex or religion.
It is worthwhile noting that there is a difference between what people are free to do and what they will find it in their interest to do. For example, a basketball team owner may be free to refuse to hire black players, but would he find it in his interest to do so?
I am all too afraid that most of my fellow Americans are hostile to the principle of liberty in general. Most people want liberty for themselves. I want more than that. I want liberty for me and liberty for my fellow man.
Thank Liberals for Today's Chaotic and Dangerous World
Star Parker / Nov 25, 2015
We're in a world today increasingly defined by chaos. At home it's on our college campuses. Abroad it's spreading across the Middle East and spilling over into Europe.
Who do we have to thank for it all? Liberals and moral relativists in power in our country and Europe.
Liberals have led the way to destroy all sense of moral clarity in our nation, all objective sense of right and wrong and all sense of authority.
What's the common ground of these distant and seemingly totally disconnected worlds -- American college campuses and a chaotic Islamic Middle East? In both places, those who claim to have all the answers are the very ones who should be humbly asking questions and seeking knowledge.
Aren't universities allegedly where youths go to learn?
The students causing problems do not arrive on campus to seek knowledge. They arrive already knowing it all, looking to instruct professors rather than to learn from them. And the weak-kneed liberal faculties and administrators at universities agree!
Today's upside-down world can be directly traced to the purge of the values and principles of our country's Judeo-Christian heritage. Milestones of this process are the purge of school prayer in 1962, legalization of a******n-on-demand in 1973 and redefinition of marriage by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.
Once the Bible goes out the window, reality gets invented by politicians.
Ironically, the tradition of higher learning in America is rooted in the church.
Look at the website of Yale, where there is student unrest, and discover the clerical roots of the university.
Yale University "traces its roots to the 1640s when colonial clergymen led an effort to establish a local college to preserve the tradition of European liberal education in the New World. This vision was fulfilled in 1701, when a charter was granted for the school 'wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences (and) through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Public employment both in Church and Civil State.'"
Regarding campus unrest tied to allegations of r****m, we have the same problem. Despite the fact that the civil rights movement succeeded because of its Christian roots and Christian leadership, today, thanks to liberals, it is all about politics.
It is no secret that s***ery and r****m are shameful blots on America's history. But Judeo-Christian values are not about claiming the world is perfect. They are about t***smitting the right values, principles and tools to individuals to take personal responsibility to perfect this broken world. This is in contrast to liberals, who invent their own illusions about the world and blame everyone else for their problems.
What about the Middle East?
The world of Islam is horribly broken. By some estimates illiteracy rates average 40 percent. As I wrote a few weeks ago, of 31 nations with populations more than 90 percent Muslim, two are free by the measurement of Freedom House in Washington, D.C.
According to "100 Years of Nobel Prizes," published in 2003, between the years 1901 and 2000 65.4 percent of Nobel laureates were Christians and 20 percent were Jews (who make up just .2 percent of the world's population). Muslims, despite being 20 percent of the world's population, achieved just .8 percent of Nobel prizes in that time. A world of 1.2 billion Muslims produced just 5 Nobel laureates over a century.
Instead of this broken Islamic world hearing from the West that they need to fix themselves, they hear from President Obama that our values are "tolerance and diversity and e******y" and that the problem is a handful of terrorists and not the world of Islam itself.
Look no further than liberals holding positions of leadership in the West to understand why we live in an increasingly chaotic and dangerous world. If we want to fix the world, we must fix ourselves and restore the kind of values and leadership we need.
Don G. Dinsdale wrote:
Political T***slations
Thomas Sowell / Nov 25, 2015
It is amazing how many different ways the same thing can be said, creating totally different impressions. For example, when President Barack Obama says that defeating ISIS is going to take a long time, how is that different from saying that he is going to do very little, very slowly? It is saying the same thing in different words.
Defenders of the administration's policies may cite how many aerial sorties have been flown by American planes against ISIS. There have been thousands of these sorties, which sounds very impressive. But what is less impressive -- and more indicative -- is that, in most of those sorties, the planes have not fired a single shot or dropped a single bomb.
Why? Because the rules of engagement are so restrictive that in most circumstances there is little that the pilot is allowed to do, unless circumstances are just right, which they seldom are in any war.
Moreover, the thousands of sorties being flown are still a small fraction of the number of sorties flown in the same amount of time during the Iraq war, when American leaders were serious about getting the war won.
Politics produces lots of words that can mean very different things, if you stop and think about them. But politicians depend on the fact that many people don't bother to stop and think about them.
We often hear that various problems within the black community are "a legacy of s***ery." That phrase is in widespread use among people who believe in the kinds of welfare state programs that began to dominate government policies in the 1960s.
Blaming social problems today on "a legacy of s***ery" is another way of saying, "Don't blame our welfare state policies for things that got worse after those policies took over. Blame what happened in earlier centuries."
Nobody would accept that kind of cop-out, if it were expressed that way. But that is why it is expressed differently, as a "legacy of s***ery."
If we were being serious, instead of being political, we could look at the facts. Were the kinds of problems we are concerned about in black communities today as bad during the first century after s***ery or in the first generation after the vastly expanded welfare state?
What about children being raised with no father in the home? As of 1960, nearly a century after s***ery ended, 22 percent of black children were being raised in single-parent families. Thirty years later, 67 percent of all black children were being raised in single-parent families.
What about violence? As of 1960, homicide rates among non-white males had gone down by 22 percent during the preceding decade. But, during the decade of the 1960s, that trend suddenly reversed, and the homicide rate shot up by 76 percent. The welfare state vision was often part of a larger, non-judgmental social vision that was lenient on criminals and hard on the police.
Few people today know that marriage rates and rates of labor force participation were once higher among b****s than among w****s -- all of this during the first century after s***ery. In later years, a reversal occurred, largely in the wake of the welfare state expansions that began in the 1960s.
Another fashionable phrase that evades any need for evidence is "disparate impact" -- a legal phrase accepted in the Supreme Court of the United States, despite being downright silly when you stop and think about it.
Whenever there is some standard for being hired, promoted or admitted to a college, some groups may meet that standard more so than others. One way of expressing that is to say that more of the people from group X meet the standard than do people from group Y. But politically correct people express the same thing by saying that the standard has a "disparate impact" on group Y. Once it is expressed this way, it is the standard that is suspect -- and whoever set that standard has to prove a negative, namely that he is not guilty of discrimination against group Y. Often nobody can prove anything, so the accused loses -- or else settles out of court.
Stupid? No. It takes very clever people to make something like that sound plausible. But it also requires people who don't bother to stop and think, who enable them to get away with it.
Free Speech
Walter E. Williams / Nov 25, 2015
Recent events at the University of Missouri, Yale University and some other colleges demonstrate an ongoing ignorance and/or contempt for the principles of free speech. So let's examine some of those principles by asking: What is the true test of one's commitment to free speech?
Contrary to the widespread belief of tyrants among college students, professors and administrators, the true test of one's commitment to free speech does not come when one permits people to be free to express those ideas that he finds acceptable. The true test of one's commitment to free speech comes when he permits others to say those things that he finds deeply offensive. In a word, free speech is absolute, or nearly so.
No doubt a campus pseudo-intellectual, particularly in a law school, will chime in suggesting that free speech is not absolute, bringing up the canard that you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is not a free speech issue. A person who shouts "fire" violates the implied contract that theatergoers have to watch a performance undisturbed. Of course, if all patrons were informed when they purchased tickets that someone would falsely shout "fire" during the performance, there would be little problem.
Then there is speech called defamation, which is defined as the action of making a false spoken or written statement damaging to a person's reputation. Defamation is criminalized, but should it be? That question might be best answered by asking: Does your reputation belong to you? In other words, are the thoughts that other people have about you your property?
The principles that apply to one's commitment to free speech also apply to one's commitment to freedom of association. Like the true test of one's commitment to free speech, the true test of one's commitment to freedom of association does not come when he permits people to associate in ways he deems acceptable. The true test of one's commitment to freedom of association comes when he permits people to be free to associate -- or not to associate -- in ways he deems offensive.
Permitting discriminatory association practices in publicly owned facilities -- such as libraries, parks and beaches -- should not be permitted. That is because they are taxpayer-financed and everyone should have a right to equal access. But denying freedom of association in private clubs, private businesses and private schools violates people's right to freely associate.
Christian Americans have been prosecuted for their refusal to cater same-sex weddings. Those who support such attacks might ask themselves whether they would also seek prosecution of an owner of a Jewish delicatessen who refused to provide services for a neo-N**i affair. Should a black catering company be forced to cater a Ku Klux Klan affair? Should the NAACP be forced to open its membership to r****t skinheads? Should the Congressional Black Caucus be forced to open its membership to white members of Congress?
Liberty requires bravery. To truly support free speech, one has to accept that some people will say and publish things he finds deeply offensive. Similarly, to be for freedom of association, one has to accept that some people will associate in ways that he finds deeply offensive, such as associating or not associating on the basis of race, sex or religion.
It is worthwhile noting that there is a difference between what people are free to do and what they will find it in their interest to do. For example, a basketball team owner may be free to refuse to hire black players, but would he find it in his interest to do so?
I am all too afraid that most of my fellow Americans are hostile to the principle of liberty in general. Most people want liberty for themselves. I want more than that. I want liberty for me and liberty for my fellow man.
Thank Liberals for Today's Chaotic and Dangerous World
Star Parker / Nov 25, 2015
We're in a world today increasingly defined by chaos. At home it's on our college campuses. Abroad it's spreading across the Middle East and spilling over into Europe.
Who do we have to thank for it all? Liberals and moral relativists in power in our country and Europe.
Liberals have led the way to destroy all sense of moral clarity in our nation, all objective sense of right and wrong and all sense of authority.
What's the common ground of these distant and seemingly totally disconnected worlds -- American college campuses and a chaotic Islamic Middle East? In both places, those who claim to have all the answers are the very ones who should be humbly asking questions and seeking knowledge.
Aren't universities allegedly where youths go to learn?
The students causing problems do not arrive on campus to seek knowledge. They arrive already knowing it all, looking to instruct professors rather than to learn from them. And the weak-kneed liberal faculties and administrators at universities agree!
Today's upside-down world can be directly traced to the purge of the values and principles of our country's Judeo-Christian heritage. Milestones of this process are the purge of school prayer in 1962, legalization of a******n-on-demand in 1973 and redefinition of marriage by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.
Once the Bible goes out the window, reality gets invented by politicians.
Ironically, the tradition of higher learning in America is rooted in the church.
Look at the website of Yale, where there is student unrest, and discover the clerical roots of the university.
Yale University "traces its roots to the 1640s when colonial clergymen led an effort to establish a local college to preserve the tradition of European liberal education in the New World. This vision was fulfilled in 1701, when a charter was granted for the school 'wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences (and) through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Public employment both in Church and Civil State.'"
Regarding campus unrest tied to allegations of r****m, we have the same problem. Despite the fact that the civil rights movement succeeded because of its Christian roots and Christian leadership, today, thanks to liberals, it is all about politics.
It is no secret that s***ery and r****m are shameful blots on America's history. But Judeo-Christian values are not about claiming the world is perfect. They are about t***smitting the right values, principles and tools to individuals to take personal responsibility to perfect this broken world. This is in contrast to liberals, who invent their own illusions about the world and blame everyone else for their problems.
What about the Middle East?
The world of Islam is horribly broken. By some estimates illiteracy rates average 40 percent. As I wrote a few weeks ago, of 31 nations with populations more than 90 percent Muslim, two are free by the measurement of Freedom House in Washington, D.C.
According to "100 Years of Nobel Prizes," published in 2003, between the years 1901 and 2000 65.4 percent of Nobel laureates were Christians and 20 percent were Jews (who make up just .2 percent of the world's population). Muslims, despite being 20 percent of the world's population, achieved just .8 percent of Nobel prizes in that time. A world of 1.2 billion Muslims produced just 5 Nobel laureates over a century.
Instead of this broken Islamic world hearing from the West that they need to fix themselves, they hear from President Obama that our values are "tolerance and diversity and e******y" and that the problem is a handful of terrorists and not the world of Islam itself.
Look no further than liberals holding positions of leadership in the West to understand why we live in an increasingly chaotic and dangerous world. If we want to fix the world, we must fix ourselves and restore the kind of values and leadership we need.
Political T***slations br br Thomas Sowell / Nov ... (
show quote)
Three thoughtful people with food for thought. Thanks for posting it. Happy Thanksgiving.
Thanks, and you have a good football and too much Turkey, ha...
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no propaganda please wrote:
Three thoughtful people with food for thought. Thanks for posting it. Happy Thanksgiving.
Don G. Dinsdale wrote:
Thanks, and you have a good football and too much Turkey, ha...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We will do as usual, have two thanksgivings. Todays Thanksgiving is at the church with a feast for all. Food is now cooking, and SWMBO is going to go pick up people who can't drive so they can join us at the church while I finish the part of cooking that had to wait until the last minute. There will probably be a hundred people there, a very crowded church, hope all have showered this morning!! Tomorrow we will celebrate thanksgiving with "our boys" and their families, including Pete and David and their families. Looking forward to the day. Several of "our boys" who are now married and have families will join us and the double wide will be rockin!!. May God bless and keep you this Thanksgiving and always.
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