Redefining Freedom

Many intellectuals, living in the safety and comfort of free societies, have found it expedient to redefine freedom, so that an expansion of government determination of economic outcomes, through an expansion of government compulsion, is not seen as a trade-off of freedom, as conveniently redefined.

In the world of words, the hardest facts can be made to vanish into thin air by a clever catchword or soaring rhetoric. In a public discourse where slogans and images have too often replaced facts and logic, words have indeed become for some what Hobbes called them, centuries ago— the money of fools, often counterfeit money created by clever people. Our educational system, which might have been expected to develop students’ ability to “cross-examine the facts,” as the great economist Alfred Marshall once put it, has itself become one of the fountainheads of insinuations and obfuscations. 

Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, pg.148-149.

Redistributed Income?

Neither income nor wealth can be redistributed when it was not distributed in the first place, but earned directly from those who valued whatever was sold.

Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, pg.147

Private Enterprise

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

Winston Churchill, cited in The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill, edited by Max Morris, pg.79

Never Give In

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Winston Churchill, cited in The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill, edited by Max Morris, Pg.38

Privileged?

Children who are currently being raised with the kinds of values, discipline and work habits that are likely to make them valuable contributors to society, and a source of pride to themselves and to those who raised them, are called “privileged,” and are taught in schools to feel guilty when other children are being raised with values, behavior and habits that are likely to leave them few options as adults, other than to live at the expense of other people, whether via the welfare state or through a life of crime, or both.

Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, pg.124-125

Diversity or Balkanization?

A fragmented society of people polarized into separated group identities used to be called a “Balkanized” society, and the painful history of strife, bloodshed and atrocities in the Balkans stood as an example of how destructive that can be to all. But that was before the word “Balkanization” was replaced by the much nicer-sounding word “diversity,” from which all sorts of wonderful benefits have been assumed and incessantly proclaimed, without any empirical test of those claims.  This new and nicer-sounding word has also avoided having the painful history of the Balkans— and of similar places elsewhere around the world— being called to mind.

By “diversity” those who incessantly proclaim that word, and its presumed benefits, mean more than simply people with different cultures interacting. The word “diversity” is used to imply positive interactions, with benefits for the various participants and for society at large. But we cannot simply define our way into beneficial outcomes. Whether the promotion of separate identities— by race, sex or other characteristics— is beneficial or harmful in its consequences is an empirical question— and a question almost never confronted by apostles of “diversity.” The actual track record of promoting separate group identities, whether called “Balkanization” or “diversity,” has been appalling, in countries around the world.

Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, pg.120

Black Poverty?

Despite the high poverty rate among black Americans in general, the poverty rate among black married couples has been less than 10 percent every year since 1994.

The poverty rate of married blacks is not only lower than that of blacks as a whole, but in some years has also been lower than that of whites as a whole. In 2016, for example, the poverty rate for blacks was 22 percent, for whites was 11 percent, and for black married couples was 7.5 percent.

Do racists care whether someone black is married or unmarried? If not, then why do married blacks escape poverty so much more often than other blacks, if racism is the main reason for black poverty? If the continuing effects of past evils such as slavery play a major causal role today, were the ancestors of today's black married couples exempt from slavery and other injustices?

As far back as 1969, young black males whose homes included newspapers, magazines, and library cards, and who also had the same education as young white males, had similar incomes as their white counterparts. Do racists care whether blacks have reading material and library cards?

Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, Pg.116

Numbers and Words

While numbers can be used in ways that are deceptive as regards particular issues, words can be used in ways that can be more sweepingly deceptive as regards how a whole society is seen.

Numbers may deceive us because of their apparent objectivity, but words can deceive more comprehensively because of their emotional appeals that numbers seldom have. There may be very legitimate reasons to react adversely to words like "war," "racism," or "murder," but it is the illegitimate invoking of emotionally charged words that is especially dangerous— as anything that overrides thought, or substitutes for thought, can be dangerous. Emotional manipulation is, however, only one of the dangers when words are used in ways that obscure both realities and the connections of cause and effect behind those realities.

Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, pg.115

History

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong they are not always just, and when they wish to be just they are often no longer strong.

Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 3/26/36. cited in The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill, edited by Max Morris, pg.18

The Constitution is Dying

Can the real Constitution be restored? Probably not. Too many Americans depend on government money under programs the Constitution doesn't authorize, and money talks with an eloquence Shakespeare could only envy. Ignorant people don't understand The Federalist Papers, but they understand government checks with their names on them.

Joseph Sobran

The LEFT Hates Independence

What do automobiles, guns, and home-schooling all have in common that makes the liberals hate them? All these things reduce individual dependence on the government and on the grandiose schemes for other people's lives created by liberals and imposed by government.

Thomas Sowell

Become an American or LEAVE

Democracy?

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Winston Churchill, cited in The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill, edited by Max Morris, pg.22

The Danger of Allowing Islam

Once upon a time, the Islamic world was a superpower and its jihad an irresistible force to be reckoned with. Over two centuries ago, however, a rising Europe—which had experienced more than one millennium of Muslim conquests and atrocities—eclipsed and defanged Islam. As Muhammad’s civilization retreated into obscurity, the post-Christian West slowly came into being. Islam did not change, but the West did: Muslims still venerate their heritage and religion—which commands jihad against infidels—whereas the West has learned to despise its heritage and religion, causing it to become an unwitting ally of the jihad.

Hence the current situation: Islamic jihad is back in full vigor, while the West facilitates it in varying degrees; hence the irony: “At a time when the military superiority of the West—meaning chiefly the USA—over the Muslim world has never been greater,” observes historian Alan G. Jamieson, “Western countries feel insecure ind the face of the activities of Islamic terrorists. . . . In all the long centuries of Christian-Muslim conflict, never has the military imbalance between the two sides been greater, yet the dominant West can apparently derive no comfort from that fact.”

In short, if Islam is terrorizing the West today, that is not because it can, but because the West allows it to. For no matter how diminished, a still swinging Scimitar will always overcome a strong but sheathed Sword.

Raymond Ibrahim, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West, pg. 296-297

Courage

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Winston Churchill, cited in The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill, edited by Max Morris, pg.18

The Danger of Islam is Always Current

Millions of people of the white civilization—that is, the civilization of Europe and America—have forgotten all about Islam. They have never come into contact with it. They take for granted that it is decaying, and that, anyway, it is just a foreign religion which will not concern them. It is, as a fact, the most formidable and persistent enemy which our civilization has had, and may at any moment become as large a menace in the future as it has been in the past.

Hilaire Belloc. Cited by Raymond Ibrahim in Sword and Scimitar, pg.295

Don't Be Afraid of the Light

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Plato