“One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before
and proved disastrous before, time and time again.”
~ Thomas Sowell
A documentary about Thomas Sowell is coming out next week. John Stossel released a trailer (below). It looks very interesting. Mr. Sowell was originally a Marxist. He started reading at a very early age thanks to a friend who introduced him to the library, and he saw all the poverty up against the wealth and thought Marxism was the way to go.
What changed him? Facts!
Sowell defends free markets and criticizes the conceit of political planners.
Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina at the start of the Great Depression. His father died before he was born. His mother died soon after. When he was nine, a relative took him to Harlem.
Mr. Sowell said he was very poor but felt very fortunate because he had the library.
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself you tell them what they want to hear.” ~ Thomas Sowell
His first job was as an intern at The Department of Labor. “ He soon realized that the US Department of Labor had its own agenda and interest, and that did not necessarily mean poor people losing their minimum wage jobs or getting higher pay was the highest priority.
He found out that people in the government didn’t give a rip whether or not it worked or didn’t work; they were simply implementing the policy, and that’s what shocked him and caused him to rethink many of his assumptions.
If crime is a product of poverty and discrimination as they say endlessly, why was there so much less of it when poverty and discrimination were much worse than today? If massive programs are the only hope to reduce violence in the ghetto, why was there so much less violence long before anyone ever thought of these programs?
~ Thomas Sowell
Mr. Sowell’s work utterly contradicts what Americans are taught about black poverty. He says claims of systemic racism are propaganda. If you go back to the 20s, you find that married couples were much more prevalent among blacks. As late as 1930, blacks had lower unemployment rates than whites.
He says that the whole notion that the black family has always been disintegrating is nonsense.
All these things that we complain about and attribute to slavery – those things should have been worse in the past than in the present, Sowell says. They weren’t. The bigger cause of blacks’ problems today is welfare.
With the welfare state, there was no stigma – they thought they would help. They did not help and in many cases, made things worse. Sowell concluded that many government programs did much more harm than good because of affirmative action. Something like 1/4 of all the black students going to MIT do not graduate. “You’re talking about a pool of people you are artificially turning into failures by mismatching them with the school.”
His views are not popular, but he won’t compromise them. So the media has just decided to ignore him. Does that sound familiar?
“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules … that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today,” says Thomas Sowell.
Here’s why I admire him: pic.twitter.com/AHvMDmLhgi
— John Stossel (@JohnStossel) September 15, 2023
“Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?”
― Thomas Sowell
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10603347-have-we-reached-the-ultimate-stage-of-absurdity-where-some 20230916 10:02 GMT
Born in 1930, he has a much longer personal view of history that most Americans. He has seen so much and wisely reflects of not only his experiences but from previous history.
Others of us have a bit less life experience but we have seen so much that it is difficult for us to comprehend how ignorant so many Americans are today of the failure of the systems that they willingly embrace today, and how little they understand what made America a great nation, concepts they in effect reject today.
That explains why a man whose slogan is Make America Great Again, can be so hated rather than appreciated and loved.
Humorous aside:
Did the mRNA vaccines insert a stupid gene in them?
… and no! I did not let insert that **** in my body.
Truly a great man and a shining role model for all Americans, no matter their color, ethnicity, or social standing. That’s why a bigoted media have to ignore him.