Random Events [Thomas Sowell](MUST READ!)

Townhall ^ | May 6, 2008 | Thomas Sowell

[2ndDivisionVet]

How does he get so much into so few words?

I should have known it was ACORN that Barack Hussein Muhammad Obama worked for: Now the light REALLY comes on!

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

too much pride to take charity

This is such a bizarre concept in the modern age that you almost wonder if Sowell has gone bonkers and is inventing the memory of it.

An era when the people of Harlem were too proud to take charity?

To the modern ear, it sounds like a fairy tale.

[2ndDivisionVet]

No, I’m only 48 years old, and I remember it. Sometimes it does seem like I dreamed it, though.

[HerrBlucher]

We don't need people like either Jeremiah Wright or Barack Obama to take us backward.

And there you have it, Obama, Wright, Jackson, and Sharpton in a nutshell......or better yet....nuts..hell

[ccmay]

No, I’m only 48 years old, and I remember it. Sometimes it does seem like I dreamed it, though.

The past is another country. They do things differently there.

[Billthedrill]

It is a difference between upscale demagoguery and ghetto demagoguery, playing the audience for suckers in both cases.

Brutal. And Sowell has the right to say it.

We know him as a brilliant economist, which he is. He was a high-school dropout who got a GED after a stint in the Marine Corps told him who he really was. From there to Columbia, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. He really is what Obama pretends to be.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

No, I’m only 48 years old, and I remember it. Sometimes it does seem like I dreamed it, though.

You know, I was watching Gladiator on HBO a few minutes ago, and I came out here and sat down at the computer because I wanted to google a little about the real-life Marcus Aurelius & his son, Commodus, and I was just reading about some of Commodus's antics after he became emperor:

The emperor also had a passion for gladiatorial combat, which he took so far as to take to the arena himself, dressed as a gladiator. This action was considered to be unusual conduct for an emperor by the people of Rome. The Roman people also found Commodus' naked gladiatorial combats as disgraceful and disgusting... Privately, it was his custom to slay his practice opponents. For each appearance in the arena, he charged the city of Rome a million sesterces, straining the Roman economy.

Commodus did raise the ire of many military officials in Rome for his Hercules persona in the arena. Often wounded soldiers and amputees would be placed in the arena for Commodus to slay with a sword. Commodus' eccentric behavior would not stop there. Citizens of Rome missing their feet due to accident or disease were taken to the arena where they were tethered together for Commodus to club to death while pretending they were giants.

And in reading Sowell's piece and in thinking about it just now, it dawned on me that I, in calendar year 2008, feel about as far removed from any [hypothetical? mythical?] black American spirit of self-reliance [which Sowell is describing in his piece] as I feel removed from the Romans themselves.

It literally feels as though Sowell is talking about the ancient history of long-extinct peoples.

[Lumper20]

Too much TV is dangerous.

[Ooh-Ah]

How does he get so much into so few words?

Take a look at his AWESOME Wikipedia page: Thomas Sowell

One of my favorite comments made by Sowell was: I'm so glad I got into Harvard before there was affirmative action!

It's so sad that libs don't even know about him!

[txhurl]

bump!

[vets son]

ACORN - I had to do a search to refresh my memory. Here’s a link for those like me with CRS.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6968

[2ndDivisionVet]

They are always hiring: http://dallas.craigslist.org/npo/660629745.html

[DeweyCA]

I’m 57. I grew up poor but I didn’t know it at the time. My parents looked on getting money from the government as a shameful thing. It was an admittance of failure. They never took the available even though some neighbors did. My parents spoke disparagingly of them, and rightfully so.

[AliVeritas]

ACORN and Project Vote, also had the nerve to represent them re: legal. This dude has Palis in Gaza campaigning for him calling the states.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21YF7ggCG6g

This was an endorsement I had the honor of hearing live on the radio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_ZdACdhDBY

Ah yes... the no comment/comment on Jimmy Carter
(sick him Newt)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KWqihXeM7E&feature=related

He hooked up AAAN (Arab American Action Network) through his position in government re: Chicago (via the Woods Fund he sat on with Bill Ayers), attended salute for Edward Said of all people, dealt with Khalidi, two wanted by Interpol, and has facilitated wanted individuals getting visas to walk freely in Chicago while wanted.

Look at Robert Malley at Discover the Network, as well as his other staffers... that will tell it all.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2310

After you read all those articles in the side bar, read what Malley said about being misunderstood:

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/April_2008/0804030.html

Mmkay.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/03/kissing_robert_malley.html

Well, Ali Abunimah says it best:

Oh, and the pastor republished Hamas columns in the church bulletin.

http://www.bizzyblog.com/2008/03/21/hamas-obama-wright-resonates/

Oh and the view from Harvard (for the educated):
Arabs for Obama
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/02/arabs_for_obama/

Just had that handy...

That’s just the tiny stuff. Trust me.

[Rummyfan]

Are you not entertained?

[Smokin' Joe]

An era when the people of Harlem were too proud to take charity?

I guess I'm an old fart. I recall my mother giving an older lady bags of clothing with the statement that "...she might know someone who could use these...we had out grown them."

There was a time when the preservation of dignity, even in charity was paramount.

Demean a few generations, though, and there is no pride left.

[hershey]

Amazing article. Right on the button. But that’s T. Sowell.

[dawn53]

This is such a bizarre concept in the modern age that you almost wonder if Sowell has gone bonkers and is inventing the memory of it. An era when the people of Harlem were too proud to take charity? To the modern ear, it sounds like a fairy tale.

My dad tells tales of their childhood, when they were poor (large farm family) during the depression, but too proud to take charity.

Our (my siblings and I) favorite story is one about his school lunch. The other kids in grammar school would take regular sandwiches, of bread and meat or the like to school. My dad took a biscuit with collards or tomato gravy (i.e. something they had grown in their garden on a leftover biscuit from breakfast.) They ate in a common area, outside, and he was often teased at lunch, so his teacher would bring a "regular" sandwich from home and offer it to him. He refused, because he knew it was charity.

But the wise teacher soon outsmarted the elementary school boy. She'd ask him, "What did you bring for lunch today?" To which he'd reply, "A biscuit with collards." Then her standard line became, "I love biscuits with collards, do you want to trade me for my sandwich?" And to trade was "okay"...so he would, and then he'd go outside to eat with the other kids, "regular" sandwich in hand.

[ovrtaxt]

ACORN. How about that! You’re right, it makes perfect sense now.

[aruanan]

I didn’t think it that bizarre because it fits in with a lot of what I already know to have been the case. It sounds bizarre only in contrast to what is believed to be the norm now. The question to ask is what exactly was it that accomplished the seduction to get a group of people to give up their self-respect. Once this happens, within a single generation, it is perpetuated more easily amongst those of succeeding generations. Some say that it was “the war on poverty”. That’s too general. What were the techniques used on actual people to seduce them and cause them to deviate from how their parents were raised? Was it an appeal to teenaged girls through school guidance counselors that if they got pregnant and had no husband they’d get all sorts of wonderful (wonderful to a 14 or 15-year-old girl) things? If so, there would have had to have been collusion between such “guidance” counselors and operatives from the federal government’s war on poverty to popularize what was being offered and to coordinate cash flow. There must have been actual meetings and plans drawn up about which strategies to use to “reach” which specific groups of people and the techniques to use to overcome objections the potential recipients could raise.