Jewish World Review Sept. 4, 1998 / 13 Elul, 5758
Thomas Sowell
Random thoughts
-
Sign on a San Francisco automobile dealer's wall: "We cheat the other guy and pass the
savings on to you."
-
They say cream rises to the top. However, among government employees, the cream
tends to leave after a few years, allowing mediocrity to rise to the top.
-
"Entitlement" is not only the opposite of achievement, it undermines incentives to do all the
hard work that leads to achievement.
-
Passionate discussions of the "haves" and the "have nots" seem completely unaffected by
growing evidence that most of these are the same people at different stages of their lives.
-
If you have ever seen a four-year-old trying to lord it over a two-year-old, then you know
what the basic problem of human nature is -- and why government keeps growing larger
and ever more intrusive.
-
Why do polls keep asking people whether they think Clinton should be impeached for
having sex with Monica Lewinsky? No serious person wants him impeached for that. The
issue is obstruction of justice -- and at stake is the rule of law, without which this country is in
big trouble.
-
Nobody talks more about "affordable housing" than liberals -- and nobody has done more
to make housing unaffordable, with tons of red tape for builders, costly bureaucratic delays,
restrictions that create artificial housing shortages, etc., etc.
-
Unless you are talking about a court of law, blindly repeating the spin-masters' phrase "a
presumption of innocence" merits a presumption of stupidity.
-
I like seeing Sumo wrestlers. They make me feel like I am not so overweight, after all.
-
One of many reasons why students need to be taught to use precise definitions and
systematic logic is that it makes life safer for them and safer for the whole society. As the
history of the 20th century shows, people do not usually create totalitarianism or start wars
over clear ideas, but over nebulous nonsense that appeals to their emotions.
-
Parents who do not realize what a propaganda apparatus the public schools have become
should read "Cloning of the American Mind" by B.K. Eakman.
-
If I were a zillionaire, I would have a home in Sydney, Australia, one in San Francisco, one
in Paris and maybe one on the outskirts of New York.
-
When a former White House spokesman said that the bombings of American embassies in
Africa could be "a welcome distraction" from the president's domestic scandals, it was a
revealing symptom of the underlying cynicism pervading the Clinton administration.
-
One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and
oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by well-fed people with time on
their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or
imagined grievances.
-
Any philanthropist who is in doubt as to the best place to put his money to help others
should invest in the private economy, where it will serve purposes determined by the
consuming public, rather than by coteries of self-righteous and self-important people
spending other people's money.
-
If it is wrong to force a president out of office because the acts he committed are not
considered to be serious enough, then it must be even more wrong to force a president out
of office because of acts that he didn't commit at all. Yet the Watergate burglary, which
President Nixon learned about only after it had happened, nevertheless led to his being
forced to resign -- because he engaged in obstruction of justice over it.
-
After picking up some of my dirty clothes, my wife -- a lawyer -- decided to cross-examine
me.
"What do you think a clothes hamper is for?"
"It's something to stand on when you need to change a light bulb."
"No. Try again."
"It's a place to rest your book before stepping into the bath tub."
"No ... No ... "
Have I learned the Clinton method of evasion or
what?
8/31/98:The twilight of special prosecutors?
8/26/98: "Doing a good job"
8/24/98: America on trial?
8/19/98: Played for fools
8/17/98: A childish letter
8/11/98: Hiding behind a woman
8/07/98: A flying walrus in Washington?
8/03/98: "Affordability" strikes again
7/31/98: Random thoughts
7/27/98: Faith and mountains
7/24/98: Clinton in Wonderland
7/20/98: Where is black 'leadership' leading?
7/16/98: Do 'minorities' really have it that bad?
7/14/98: Race dialogue: same old stuff
7/10/98: Honest history
7/09/98: Dumb is dangerous
7/02/98: Gun-safety starts with
parental responsibility
6/30/98: When more is less
6/29/98: Are educators above the law?
6/26/98: Random Thoughts
6/24/98: An angry letter
6/22/98: Sixties sentimentalism
6/19/98:Dumbing down anti-trust
6/15/98: A changing of the guard?
6/11/98: Presidential privileges
6/8/98: Fast computers and slow antitrust
6/3/98: Can stalling backfire?
5/29/98: The insulation of the Left
5/25/98: Missing the point in the media
5/22/98: The lessons of Indonesia
5/20/98: Smart but silent
5/18/98: Israel, Clinton and character
5/14/98: Monica Lewinsky's choices
5/11/98: Random thoughts
5/7/98: Media obstruction of justice
5/4/98: Dangerous "safety"
5/1/98:
Abolish Adolescence!
4/30/98: The naked truth
4/22/98: Playing fair and square
4/19/98: Bad teachers"
4/15/98: "Clinton in Africa
"
4/13/98: "Bundling and unbundling
"
4/9/98: "Rising or falling Starr
"
4/6/98: "Was Clinton ‘vindicated'?
"
3/26/98: "Diasters -- natural and political"
3/24/98: "A pattern of behavior"
3/22/98: Innocent explanations
3/19/98: Kathleen Willey and Anita Hill
3/17/98: Search and destroy
3/12/98: Media Circus versus Justice
3/6/98: Vindication
3/3/98: Cheap Shot Time
2/26/98: The Wrong Filter
2/24/98: Trial by Media
2/20/98: Dancing Around the Realities
2/19/98: A "Do Something" War?
2/12/98: Julian Simon, combatant in a 200-year war
2/6/98: A rush to rhetoric
©1998, Creators Syndicate, Inc.
