Holder's Chutzpah (Thomas Sowell on Eric Holder)

Creators Syndicate ^ | May 31, 2012 | Thomas Sowell

[Tax-chick]

I don’t think that Dr. Sowell “was a Marxist” as much as that he was a student of Marxism, in his graduate-student years. He realized, being a great mind, that it was an erroneous theory.

He mentioned in his memoir that when he was teaching a graduate seminar in Marxist thought, well on in his career, students observed that they could not deduce his personal opinions from the courses. He told them that this was as it should be, since the course was not about him, but about “Marxist thought” as it exists, written, in history.

[stephenjohnbanker]

” I don’t think that Dr. Sowell “was a Marxist” as much as that he was a student of Marxism, in his graduate-student years. He realized, being a great mind, that it was an erroneous theory.”

I would tend to agree with this. Marxism is intellectually contemptible.

[Tax-chick]

Marxism is a form of religious belief disguised as social-science. To the extent that economics is a "science," in any way comparable to physics or chemistry, it is in the collection of data and the analysis of cause and effect. Economics, at its best, describes. *This* cause generally produces *that* effect. In *this* situation, producers and consumers tend to do *that*.

Once a so-called science goes past saying, "This is what exists," or "This is what happens when ...," and gets into the realm of what is right, what is just, what should happen, it is not longer "science" in any way, but philosophy or religion. Again, when a cause/effect relationship is posited but proves not to function in reality, true science rejects the hypothesis. Pseudo-science claims the relationship is true, but that the experiment "hasn't really been tried."

Dr. Sowell is firmly grounded in bedrock reality: "Economics is the allocation of scarce resources with multiple uses." Incentives and constraints, choices and trade-offs ... the real world that honest people know they are living in.

[xsmommy]

In order to attend a meeting on the fifth floor of the Justice Dept, the floor on which Holder’s ofc is located, one must produce a PHOTO ID. It is required to be admitted. But to vote? Nah.

[stephenjohnbanker]

” Once a so-called science goes past saying, “This is what exists,” or “This is what happens when ...,” and gets into the realm of what is right, what is just, what should happen, it is not longer “science” in any way, but philosophy or religion. Again, when a cause/effect relationship is posited but proves not to function in reality, true science rejects the hypothesis. Pseudo-science claims the relationship is true, but that the experiment “hasn’t really been tried.”

Dr. Sowell is firmly grounded in bedrock reality: “Economics is the allocation of scarce resources with multiple uses.” Incentives and constraints, choices and trade-offs ... the real world that honest people know they are living in. “

BUMP