Free Republic

Pope Francis has created political controversy, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor. We can no doubt expect more of the same during his visit to the United States. Pope Francis is part of a larger trend of the rise of the political left among Catholic intellectuals. He is, in a sense, the culmination of that trend. There has long been a political left among Catholics, as among other Americans. Often they were part of the pragmatic left, as in the many old Irish-run, big city political machines that...

A hostile review of my new book — "Wealth, Poverty and Politics" — said, "there is apparently no level of inequality of income or opportunity that Thomas Sowell would consider unacceptable." Ordinarily, reviewers who miss the whole point of a book they are reviewing can be ignored. But this particular confusion about what opportunity means is far too widespread, far beyond a particular reviewer of a particular book. That makes it a confusion worth clearing up, because it affects so many other discussions of very serious issues. "Wealth, Poverty and Politics" does not accept inequality of opportunity. Instead, it reports...

In a country with more than 300 million people, it is remarkable how obsessed the media have become with just one — Donald Trump. What is even more remarkable is that, after six years of repeated disasters, both domestically and internationally, under a glib egomaniac in the White House, so many potential voters are turning to another glib egomaniac to be his successor. No doubt much of the stampede of Republican voters toward Mr. Trump is based on their disgust with the Republican establishment. The fact that the next two biggest vote-getters in the polls are also complete outsiders —...

Columnist and author of “Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective,” Thomas Sowell argued that allowing refugees from the Middle East and Africa into the US “fits in wonderfully” with President Obama’s desire to “to redistribute that [America’s] wealth and power” on Friday’s “Sean Hannity Show.” Sowell stated, “I guess for the president, I think it’s a fairly simple thing, this is a man who acts as a citizen of the world, and who has expressed, on numerous occasions, a belief that the United States has too much wealth, power, etc. And that the answer is to redistribute that wealth...

The refugee crisis in Europe is one of those human tragedies for which there are no real solutions, despite how many shrill voices in the media may denounce those who fail to come up with a solution. Some options may be better than others, but there is nothing that can honestly be called a solution. Nevertheless many countries, including the United States, could do a lot better. The immediate problems are the masses of desperate men, women and children, fleeing from the wars and terrorism of the Middle East, who are flooding into Europe. But the present crisis cannot be...

Even those of us who are not supporters of either Donald Trump or Jeb Bush can learn something by comparing how each of these men handled people who tried to disrupt their question-and-answer period after a speech. After Bush's speech, hecklers from a group called "Black Lives Matter" caused Bush to simply leave the scene. When Trump opened his question-and-answer period by pointing to someone in the audience who had a question, a Hispanic immigration activist who had not been called on simply stood up and started haranguing. Trump told the activist to sit down because someone else had been...

Despite a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon, the media seem to be putting most of their attention on two candidates for their respective parties' presidential nominations next year. Moreover, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump each make their own party nervous. If next year's election comes down to Clinton versus Trump, a lot of people may simply stay home in disgust. When we are this far away from the official start of the primary election season, we can usually just say, "It's still early days." Many a front runner this early in the process ended up out of the running...

One of the most lame excuses for doing nothing is that we can't do everything. Such excuses have been repeated endlessly, even by some conservatives, when it comes to illegal immigration. We can't deport millions of illegal immigrants already living in the country, some say, so the wise thing is to just learn to live with them, according to the supposedly sophisticated crowd. This completely sidesteps the plain, obvious and galling fact that we are not deporting those illegal immigrants who are arrested by the police for violating other laws -- and are then turned loose back into American society....

Random thoughts on the passing scene: Stupid people can cause problems, but it usually takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe. President Obama's "agreement" with Iran looks very much like "the emperor's new clothes." We are supposed to pretend that there is something there, when there is nothing there that will stop, or even slow down, Iran's development of a nuclear bomb. The endlessly repeated argument that most Americans are the descendants of immigrants ignores the fact that most Americans are NOT the descendants of ILLEGAL immigrants. Millions of immigrants from Europe had to stop at Ellis Island, and...

The so-called "debates," among too many Republicans to have a debate, are yet another painful sign of how much words and ideas have degenerated in our times. No one expects these televised sound bites and "gotcha" questions to be anything like the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates on the momentous national issue of slavery. But the mob scene of candidates on stage that began with the 2012 campaign, and is now being repeated, is a big step down from the modern one-on-one debates between presidential candidates that began with John F. Kennedy versus Richard Nixon in 1960. We still have momentous national...

With Hillary Clinton’s multiple misdeeds coming to light and causing her political problems, reflected in her declining support in the polls, both she and the Democratic party have reason to be concerned. But both of them may yet be rescued by “The Donald,” who can turn out to be their Trump card. Donald Trump has virtually no chance of becoming even the Republican party’s candidate in 2016, much less being elected President of the United States. The reason is not hard to understand: Republican voters simply do not trust him, as the polls show. Nor is there any reason why...

With Hillary Clinton's multiple misdeeds coming to light and causing her political problems, reflected in her declining support in the polls, both she and the Democratic Party have reason to be concerned. But both of them may yet be rescued by "The Donald," who can turn out to be their Trump card. Donald Trump has virtually no chance of becoming even the Republican Party's candidate in 2016, much less being elected President of the United States. The reason is not hard to understand: Republican voters simply do not trust him, as the polls show. Nor is there any reason why...

People who entered the United States illegally may be called "undocumented" in politically correct circles, but what is all too well documented is the utter irresponsibility of both political parties in dealing with immigration issues. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have left the border with Mexico porous for years — porous not just for Mexicans but for anybody else, including terrorists from the Middle East. Two very different issues have gotten jumbled together in the political stew called "comprehensive immigration reform." The first and most fundamental issue is whether we are going to have an immigration policy at all. The...

Distinguished scientist Freeman Dyson has called the 1433 decision of the emperor of China to discontinue his country's exploration of the outside world the "worst political blunder in the history of civilization." The United States seems at this moment about to break the record for the worst political blunder of all time, with its Obama administration deal that will make a nuclear Iran virtually inevitable. Already the years-long negotiations, with their numerous "deadlines" that have been extended again and again, have reduced the chances that Israel can destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities, which have been multiplied and placed in scattered...

There is no way to know what is going on in someone else's mind. But sometimes their behavior tells you more than their words. The political left's great claim to authenticity and honor is that what they advocate is for the benefit of the less fortunate. But how could we test that? T.S. Eliot once said, "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they...

The outrage over another multiple murder of American military personnel on American soil by another Islamic extremist has been exacerbated by the fact that these military people had been ordered to be unarmed — and therefore sitting ducks. Millions of American civilians have also been forbidden to have guns, and are also sitting ducks — for criminals, terrorists or psychos. You might think that, before having laws or policies forcing fellow human beings to be defenseless targets, those who support such laws and policies would have some factual basis for believing that these gun restrictions save more lives, on net...

Distinguished scientist Freeman Dyson has called the 1433 decision of the emperor of China to discontinue his country's exploration of the outside world the "worst political blunder in the history of civilization." The United States seems at this moment about to break the record for the worst political blunder of all time, with its Obama administration deal that will make a nuclear Iran virtually inevitable. Already the years-long negotiations, with their numerous "deadlines" that have been extended again and again, have reduced the chances that Israel can destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities, which have been multiplied and placed in scattered...

In the wake of the recent murders in a South Carolina church, the killer's hope of igniting a race war produced the opposite effect. Blacks and whites in South Carolina came together to condemn his act and the race hate behind it. Some saw in the decision to remove the Confederate flag from in front of the state house a symbolic repudiation of the old South's racial past — and the end of the Civil War. But, unfortunately, wars do not end until both sides decide that it is over. The black parishioners who expressed forgiveness toward the killer did...

Discussions of racial problems almost invariably bring out the cliché of “a legacy of slavery.” But anyone who is being serious, as distinguished from being political, would surely want to know if whatever he is talking about — whether fatherless children, crime, or whatever — is in fact a legacy of slavery or of some of the many other things that have been done in the century and a half since slavery ended. Another cliché that has come into vogue is that slavery is “America‘s original sin.” The great Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that a good catch...