FRmail me if you want on or off the Thomas Sowell Ping List.
Posted on 04/04/2006 2:31:22 AM PDT by RWR8189
What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the widespread habit of disregarding facts. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey put it this way: "Demagoguery beats data."
People who urge us to rely on the United Nations, instead of acting "unilaterally," or who urge us to follow other countries in creating a government-run medical care system, often show not the slightest interest in getting facts about the actual track record of either the UN or government-run medical systems.
Those who believe in affirmative action likewise usually see no reason to find out what actually happens under such policies, as distinguished from what they wish, hope, or imagine happens.
The crusade for "a living wage" that will enable a worker to support a family proceeds without the slightest interest in finding out whether most people who are making low wages actually have any family to support -- much less seeking out the facts about what actually happens after the government sets wages.
People who have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by the facts are a danger to the whole society. Since the votes of such people count just as much as the votes of people who know what they are talking about, politicians have every incentive to pass laws and create policies that pander to ignorant notions, if those notions are widespread.
Even institutions that are set up to pass on facts -- the media, schools, academia -- too often treat facts as expendable and use their strategic positions to filter out facts which go against their own preconceptions.
Crimes against homosexuals, blacks, or the homeless are big news to be dramatized, repeated, and denounced. Crimes committed by homosexuals, blacks, or the homeless are not -- and are often passed over in silence by much of the media. The net result is that the public gets filtered facts, which can create an impression the direct opposite of the truth.
We learn from the media's filtered facts that there are countries with stronger gun-control laws than ours which have lower murder rates. We seldom, if ever, learn from the media about countries which have stronger gun-control laws than ours and whose murder rates are two or three times higher than ours.
The media also filter out facts about countries where gun ownership is far more widespread than in the United States -- and who nevertheless have lower murder rates.
Those who are in the business of teaching the young, whether in the public schools or on college campuses, too often see this not as a responsibility to pass on what is known but as an opportunity to indoctrinate students with their own beliefs. Many "educators" and the gurus who indoctrinated them actively disparage "mere facts," which they say you can get from an almanac or encyclopedia.
The net result is a student population that does not even know enough to know what needs to be looked up, much less how to analyze facts, so as to test opposing beliefs -- as distinguished from how to gather information to support a preconceived notion that happens to be fashionable in the schools and colleges.
Yet people are considered to be "educated" after they have spent so many years in ivy-covered buildings, absorbing the preconceptions that prevail there.
Facts that go against preconceived notions are likely to be ignored, even by many scholars. For example, slavery is an issue that is widely discussed as if it were something peculiar to Africans enslaved by Europeans, instead of something suffered and inflicted around the world by people of every race, color, and religion.
Two books about more European slaves brought to North Africa than there were African slaves brought to America have been published in recent years. They are "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters" by Robert Davis and "White Gold" by Giles Milton. Both books have been largely ignored by the media and academia alike -- and the first went out of print, less than 6 months after being published.
Apparently scholars, as well as journalists, have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by the facts.
The MSM (and mediot "reporters") are repeating one orwellian mantra from 1984:
"Ignorance is Strength"
I think you're on to something. It may be that many academic "elites" deliberately make their tomes boring as hell to confuse the reader. If you can't understand it, naturally a person will think that maybe he's not smart enough to understand this "genius". After all he or she has written this large, confusing book and has a phd (piled higher and deeper), and what have I done? (ha, ha)
Since he's your close friend you probably would like to enlighten him. There is clear evidence to support you on the government stats on taxes and Saddam's use of WMD (various poison gasses) on the Kurds. As I recall, a French journalist did an in-depth story on the gas attacks; maybe your friend the dem would believe a Frenchman in this matter.
Dr. Marxist, PhD, the economics professor, is a glaring example.
FRmail me if you want on or off the Thomas Sowell Ping List.
He said that only the first went out of print, and he didn't say anything about later editions being subsequently released. And the price tags on those things suggest low supply and high demand.
As always, Dr. Sowell hits another out of the park.
Bless him. He is a wise man.
Ask an old Englishman if they had a navy. U-boats anyone?
There sure has been a lot of Marxist economic myth on the immigration threads. It really gets in the way with its class warfare.
Only when they are inconvenient (especially for those who are modern-day liberals or socialist one-worlders).
Ping.
I hear you, sister!
Two books about more European slaves brought to North Africa than there were African slaves brought to America have been published in recent years.
In Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Sowell points out that none of the major religions/cultures - not pagans, not atheists, not Hindus, Confuscians or Buddhists or Shintoists, and certainly not Muslims - ever rejected slavery as an institution (as opposed to something imposed on self or kith and kin). And up until the Eighteenth Century, not Christians either.Sowell's point was that while we think of slavery as being a thing of the past worldwide, only post-sixteenth century Christians (not to put too fine a point on it, white men with rifles) in all of global history ever made a disinterested attack the institution of slavery. The British maintained a squadron of the Royal Navy off the west coast of Africa for no other motive than the moral imperative they felt to interdict the slave trade.
Indeed, the Emancipation Proclamation was made by Lincoln not because of but in spite of domestic considerations; it "freed" only slaves in places where its writ did not run. It did not immediately free any slaves at all. But Great Britain had strong commercial and cultural ties to the American South; Lincoln had to keep those ties from producing sypathetic action by the British. The entire purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was to make it politically impossible for Britain to support the Confederacy. And it succeeded in that purpose because a Britain which would spend substantial money interdicting the slave trade off the coast of Africa could not support the Confederacy in a war to maintain slavery.
I got into a debate with a liberal and cited Sowell's points, and completely flabbergasted him; all he could do was promise to read Sowell's book. Highly reccommended approach.
I still compare Hillary Clinton with Elena Ceaucescu, the noted expert on polymers, and partner of Nicolae, genius of the Carpathians (and now taking a dirt nap).
Like most Dems I know, he doesn't read anything that isn't lib propaganda. You can lead a horse to water etcetera. Basically like all Dems and libs, he wants to believe the edifice of lies that the libs have built up over the years. He is immune to facts. At one time he proudly stated that he didn't read anything except sports magazines and the local liberal rag.
Willful ignorance? Pity.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." - Thomas Jefferson
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