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Jewish World Review Feb. 22, 2005 / 13 Adar I, 5765
Thomas Sowell
Random thoughts
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
How many other species' members kill each other to the same
extent as human beings?
How can you be an "insurgent" in someone else's country? Yet
despite the fact that the wave of terrorism in Iraq is led by an outside
terrorist who is murdering Iraqis, our media still calls his terror campaign
an "insurgency."
It is amazing how many people who phone ask to know who you are
instead of telling you who they are.
Raising Social Security taxes today will not leave a dime more
to pay pensions to future retirees. Right now there is more money coming
into the system than is going out and the difference gets spent on other
things. Higher taxes now would mean a bigger excess to be spent on other
things, leaving nothing more for the future.
Time and again, over the centuries, price controls have produced
three things: shortages, quality deterioration and black markets. Why would
anyone want any of those things with pharmaceutical drugs?
What "eminent domain" laws mean in practice is that politicians
have a right to seize your property and turn it over to someone else, in
order to gain campaign contributions and win votes.
Don't you get tired of seeing so many "non-conformists" with the
same non-conformist look?
Everyone is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a
court of law. But we cannot just mindlessly repeat words outside the context
in which they apply. If you discovered that your spouse had been secretly
checking into motels with someone else, would you presume innocence until
proven guilty?
It is amazing how many people think that the government's role
is to give them what they want by overriding what other people want.
Automobiles are getting to look so much alike that it is hard to
tell some cars apart, even when they are made by different manufacturers or
even made in different countries. Recently, I was embarrassed to realize
that I was trying to get into someone else's German-made car on a parking
lot, thinking it was my own Japanese-made car.
In honor of George Washington's birthday, you might want to read
an excellent little book about his life. It is titled "Founding Father" by
Richard Brookhiser.
Some words that are said cannot be unsaid. The most you can do
is avoid saying them in the first place.
A check of official records shows that my property line extends
farther than I thought but laws prevent me from using that additional
land. However, I can probably be sued if anyone gets injured while
trespassing on it. In other words, I am worse off for owning more land than
I thought I had.
Sign on a monument to people who served in the military: "All
gave some. Some gave all."
People who look at the Islamic world of the Middle East and ask,
"Why do they hate us?" may be surprised to discover that such hatred goes
back long before the Bush administration or even the founding of Israel in
1947. Eminent scholar Bernard Lewis has written a very readable little book
titled "What Went Wrong?" that traces the internal problems of that region,
which led to such hatred and fanaticism.
If sanity ever returns to our society and we stop taking
pretentious elites seriously, one of the signs will be that the public will
force the removal of those ugly pieces of twisted metal that are called
"art" in front of government building.
If the government gave a $5,000 subsidy to anyone who buys an
automobile, do you doubt that the price of automobiles would go up
perhaps by $5,000? Why then does no one see any connection between
government subsidies to college students and rising tuition?
People who oppose the privatization of Social Security call it
"a risky scheme." But is anything more risky than turning money over to
politicians and hoping that they won't spend it before you retire? They have
been spending the "trust fund" for decades.
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JWR contributor Thomas Sowell, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, is author of several books, including his latest, "Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One." (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) To comment please click here.
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