Sowell: Random Thoughts (from wise thinkers)

Creators Syndicate ^ | July 23, 2013 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

Random thoughts from wise thinkers:

"We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish." (F.A. Hayek)

"Many respectable writers agree that if a man reasonably believes that he is in immediate danger of death or grievous bodily harm from his assailant he may stand his ground and that if he kills him he has not exceeded the bounds of lawful self-defense. That has been the decision of this court." (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Brown v. United States, 1921)

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." (John Adams)

"A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence." (Jean-Francois Revel)

"The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie." (J.A. Schumpeter)

"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 are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." (T.S. Eliot)

"The study of human institutions is always a search for the most tolerable imperfections." (Richard A. Epstein)

[exDemMom]

It is amazing that those people in the 1700's could so accurately foresee our future problems.

I doubt they were foreseeing as much as describing what they had already witnessed elsewhere. Lawmakers always seem to feel the need to make more and more laws; if they don't, then they do not think they are doing their jobs. It is also a feature of society that people can always find "loopholes" that existing laws do not cover, so lawmakers must write new laws to patch up the loopholes. The progression from a simple set of laws that everyone understands to a confusing mish-mash of contradictory laws is a natural consequence of human behavior.

[gortklattu]

Good to see you here, with a great point.

[1010RD]

Bingo! We don’t have a national government. We have a federal government whose main job is to protect our borders, limit and eliminate interior intrastate laws that stifle interstate commerce, and run a military to maintain international peace so that trade can occur.

That’s all folks.