[jazusamo]

Excerpt: 2. Thomas Sowell

The life journey of Thomas Sowell is evidence for all the philosophical, economic, and
cultural concepts he’s spent the last 45 years publishing mindblowing books revealing.

2. Thomas Sowell

What is the difference between the libertarian-conservatism of Buckley, National Review, and the Reagan mainstream and the libertarian-anarchism of the Ron/Rand Paul, Reason magazine, John Stossel, Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party crowd? Where does the breakdown occur? The latter do not make the connection between culture and economics.

Just promoting freedom and liberty in the political realm is not enough. In order for an individual to take advantage of it, they need to embrace cultural values which push them to take responsibility for themselves and create value for their fellow man. Not all cultures do this. And the American system was not designed for a people who did not have religion and morality to temper their self-destructive tendencies.

Looking back on all the books that contributed to my ideological shift from Left to Right, I think probably the most important one is Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals. As soon as I began to make the connection that strong cultural values drove economic prosperity then it was game over on so many ideological issues. All my life I’d been raised to believe that “poor people” all over the country needed the help of federal government programs to improve the unlucky hand they’ve been dealt through no fault of their own. But after reading Sowell and actually experiencing first-hand the culture he describes — I lived amongst rednecks black and white after graduating college — I now know a lesson that should have been obvious: a whole lot of people cause their own poverty by embracing destructive, irresponsible cultural ideas. Redneck, cracker culture that originated in the Scottish highlands migrated to the South and then emigrated up into the northern city ghettoes after the Civil War. The vulgar, rap, thug, ghetto culture so many academics and activists label “authentic black culture” is anything but. And in fact, calling it such is monstrously offensive and racist and only contributes further to the failures of minority youth today.

Sowell’s columns are like sampler platters for his books and reminders of how effective his best arguments can be at provoking realignments in values. Here are excerpts from three great Sowell columns this year and also two of his regular “Random Thoughts” columns — collections of wise one liners he’s been doing since long before the Age of Twitter:

March 6, “Economic Mobility“:

Most working Americans who were initially in the bottom 20 percent of income-earners, rise out of that bottom 20 percent. More of them end up in the top 20 percent than remain in the bottom 20 percent.

People who were initially in the bottom 20 percent in income have had the highest rate of increase in their incomes, while those who were initially in the top 20 percent have had the lowest. This is the direct opposite of the pattern found when following income brackets over time, rather than following individual people.

Most of the media publicize what is happening to the statistical brackets — especially that “top one percent” — rather than what is happening to individual people.

We should be concerned with the economic fate of flesh-and-blood human beings, not waxing indignant over the fate of abstract statistical brackets. Unless, of course, we are hustling for an expansion of the welfare state.

May 14, “Lies about Libya”:

What we were told repeatedly last year by the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and the American ambassador to the U.N., was that there was a protest demonstration in Benghazi against an anti-Islamic video produced by an American, and that this protest demonstration simply escalated out of control.

This “spontaneous protest” story did not originate in Libya but in Washington. Neither the Americans on duty in Libya during the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, nor officials of the Libyan government, said anything about a protest demonstration.

The highest American diplomat on the scene in Libya spoke directly with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by phone, and told her that it was a terrorist attack. The president of Libya announced that it was a terrorist attack. The C.I.A. told the Obama administration that it was a terrorist attack.

With lies, as with potato chips, it is hard to stop with just one.

June 25, “Random Thoughts“:

Edmund Burke said, “There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men.” Evil men do not always snarl. Some smile charmingly. Those are the most dangerous.

September 10, “Syria and Obama”:

I cannot see why even a single American, a single Israeli or a single Syrian civilian should be killed as a result of a token U.S. military action, undertaken simply to spare Barack Obama the embarrassment of doing nothing, after his ill-advised public ultimatum to the Syrian government to not use chemical weapons was ignored.

Some people say that some military response is necessary, not to spare Obama a personal humiliation, but to spare the American presidency from losing all credibility — and therefore losing the ability to deter future threats to the United States without bloodshed.

There is no question that the credibility of the presidency — regardless of who holds that office — is a major asset of this country. Another way of saying the same thing is that Barack Obama has recklessly risked the credibility of future presidents, and the future safety of this country, by his glib words and weak actions.

November 26, “Random Thoughts“:

Many people take pride in defying the conventions of society. Those conventions of society are also known as civilization. Defying them wholesale means going back to barbarism. Barbarians with electronic devices are still barbarians.

Next year I’m going to dive deeper into Sowell’s books. Here’s my reading plan and recommendations to others.

In addition to Black Rednecks and White Liberals, I’ve already read these seven Sowell books and suggest this order of importance with the first four especially as essential:

1. Marxism: Philosophy and Economics
2. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
3. A Personal Odyssey
4. A Conflict Of Visions
5. The Quest for Cosmic Justice
6. A Man of Letters
7. Compassion Versus Guilt, and other essays

And here are the 21 Sowell books still on my reading list, in the approximate order that I’d like to read them over the next few years:

An Overview:

1. The Thomas Sowell Reader

Two Critiques of Today’s Dominant Intellectual Culture:

2. Intellectuals and Society: Revised and Expanded Edition

3. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

A 1980 classic on how the transmission of knowledge in economics and social life affects decision making processes:

4. Knowledge And Decisions (This book can be especially helpful in explaining to people why Obamacare is failing so dramatically. The primary problem with socialism isn’t an ideological one but a practical one: nobody has the capability to acquire and process enough knowledge in order to make decisions for everyone else.)

A 1981 Classic Study of the History of ethnic groups in America:

5. Ethnic America: A History

Five Introductions to Classical Liberal Economics:

6. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One

7. Economic Facts and Fallacies, 2nd edition

8. The Housing Boom and Bust: Revised Edition

9. On Classical Economics

10. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One

Three Explorations of Cultures Around the World:

11. Race And Culture: A World View

12. Conquests And Cultures: An International History

13. Migrations And Cultures: A World View

Three Examinations of the Relationships Between Race and Economics:

14. Markets and Minorities

15. Race and Economics

16. The Economics and Politics of Race: An International Perspective

Six newspaper essay collections:

17. Dismantling America: and other controversial essays

18. Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays

19. Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays

20. Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays

21. Controversial Essays

22. Pink and Brown People and Other Controversial Essays

Two Studies of Education:

23. Inside American Education

24. Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study

Two Books on child development:

25. Late-Talking Children

26. The Einstein Syndrome

[jazusamo]

*PING*
Thomas Sowell

Recent columns
Christmas Books
A Challenge to Our Beliefs
Random Thoughts

Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to or removed from the Thomas Sowell ping list…

[1rudeboy]

Thanks for giving the list. I wasn’t going to click through a slideshow with popups.

[rarestia]

Sowell is the centerpiece of every argument ever made by or with a black liberal. His personal story and his fantastic literary style make for fascinating and thoughtful reads. I have immense and abounding respect for blacks in this country, for their stories and how far they’ve come in the 200+ years in this country. Recent cultural and social shifts in the black communities have turned back the clocks and made many whites leery of not only their safety but their personal understanding of “blackness” in America.

Thomas Sowell is the bright, shiny example of what it means to be a successful American, let alone a man of color. I am proud to call him a countryman, and I hope that legions of black men and women follow in his footsteps in the near future. We need men and women of all races to embrace what it means to be conservative in America.

[BwanaNdege]

WOW!

Just WOW!

Thanks, jazusamo! This list is a great Christmas present.

[montag813]

Ann Coulter? Jonah Goldberg? Give me a break. Daniel Greenfield (Sultan Knish) runs circles around those two.

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

I would rank Sowell above Coulter. Actually, I’d rank about half that list above Coulter, but especially Sowell.

[Sans-Culotte]

Bump.

[Red Badger]

The Queen....................

[jimbo123]

This Ann Coulter???

Three Cheers for Romneycare!

http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2012/02/01/three_cheers_for_romneycare/page/full

[lurk]

A list of columnists that is mostly without dispute.

But they are a medicine which half the country neither knows of nor drinks. This is the weakness we face in our nation at the moment: that a great bloc has cut itself off from truth and doesn’t even know it.

As a result, their thoughts and books are largely just for the already-converted.

[ex-snook]

Seems overloaded with neo-con war mongers and free trade job exporters.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

1. The Thomas Sowell Reader

Been on my night stand for the past year. Small doses each evening. When I’m done, I’m starting all over again! :)

[Chickensoup]

Sowell
Steyn

And everyone else.

[Chickensoup]

I have read just about everything he has written. He has a logical thought system and belief system that has few if any holes. He is so darned, clear, intelligent and rational, one wants to cry when one reads his work.

[upchuck]

Annie does not belong in a list of Conservative Columnists.

[Carry_Okie]

The lack of Greenfield is a lack of depth.

[smoothsailing]

Hey Jaz, I hope you don't mind, but I just had to do this! ;-)

..............

Finally, my #1 choice for best conservative columnist, two years running, the most talented polemicist today, one who regularly draws on Sowell’s insights…. What single quality must one embody in order to be the queen on the conservative chessboard?

1. Ann Coulter

I already explained back on November 19, The Most Important Reason Why Ann Coulter Is the Best Conservative Columnist:

Ann Coulter is not a conservative columnist who happens to be a Christian and a lawyer. She is a Christian trained and practiced as a lawyer who uses a conservative column to expose evil by name. Conservatism is a means to an end: the defeat of all criminal cultures — from street thugs to Islamists to Democrat Marxist liars — who live in rebellion against Western civilization.

But today, in considering her amidst the other columnists I’ve praised on this list, it’s worth noting that her writing and punditry approach differs 180 degrees with others I’ve already praised on this list. Something worth remembering: after September 11, 2001, National Review stopped publishing Coulter because of these notorious words, which are always worth reprinting because they are correct:

Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.

Whereas the Buckley/National Review tradition seeks to persuade and seduce, the Coulter tradition strives to provoke and infuriate. This approach can work too to draw people into an argument. It’s not a coincidence that Coulter was the columnist I hated the most as a leftist and today she’s the one I like the most. For Coulter it’s more than just using some stinging rhetoric or harsh words, it’s the arguments and facts themselves that do the real cutting. It’s not uncommon that the argument that Coulter chooses to make each week is something nobody else has ever heard of and fewer are prepared to answer. Likewise, she’ll frequently focus on topics that others don’t want to touch, including criticizing sacred cows in the GOP. (Her take-downs of Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Newt Gingrich especially — all reprinted in her new column collection Never Trust a Liberal Over 3–Especially a Republican – are phenomenal.)

Consider these six from this year:

January 30, “Rubio’s Amnesty: A Path to Oblivious for the GOP“:

The Democrats never change their ideas; they change the voters. For decades, Democrats have been working feverishly to create more Democrats by encouraging divorce (another Democratic voter!), illegitimacy (another Democratic voter!) and Third World immigration (another Democratic voter!).

What does it take to be the Queen of the Conservative chessboard? To make yourself feared and hated more than any other piece on the board. At heart ideological bullies are cowards and have to be scared into submission.

Strangely, some Republicans seem determined to create more Democratic voters, too. That will be the primary result of Sen. Marco Rubio’s amnesty plan.

IT’S NOT AMNESTY! Rubio’s proponents cry. They seem to think they can bully Republicans the way the Democrats do, by controlling the language. Rubio’s bill is nothing but amnesty. It isn’t even “amnesty thinly disguised as border enforcement.” This is a wolf in wolf’s clothing.

August 21, “Arab Spring: Worst Soap Opera Ever”:

Obama’s bombing of Gadhafi was also enthusiastically supported at the Times. Gadhafi, you see, had killed hundreds of his own people. Meanwhile, President Bashar Hafez al-Assad of Syria can preside over the slaughter of more than 100,000 of his people since that time without a cross word from the left.

Libyan people proceeded to stalk and kill Gadhafi in the desert (video on YouTube). A year later, the happy people of Libya murdered our ambassador and three other Embassy staff. But as Hillary said, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

After all their carping about the Iraq War, you’d think liberals would have waited a few years before getting sentimental about democracy in Egypt and Libya. At least democracy is working in Iraq, despite Obama’s attempt to wreck it by withdrawing all U.S. troops. (We still have troops in Germany — but not in Bush’s Iraq.) Still, our ambassador wasn’t assassinated in Baghdad.

…

The one place Obama should have intervened was Iran. The moderate, pro-Western, educated Iranian people were being shot in the street in 2009 for protesting an election stolen by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a messianic lunatic in a Members Only jacket. There was a clear alternative in that case that didn’t involve the Muslim Brotherhood, to wit: the actual winner of the election.

But Obama turned his back on the Iranians. Democrats are so opposed to promoting the United States’ interests around the globe, it doesn’t occur to them that, sometimes, our national interests might coincide with the interests of other people.

September 18, “Crazier than Liberals”:

Liberals will pretend to have missed the news that the Washington Navy Yard shooter was a paranoid schizophrenic. They refuse to acknowledge that the mass murder problem — as well as the homeless problem — only began after crazy people were thrown out of institutions in the 1970s. They tell us crapping in your pants on a New York City sidewalk is a “civil right.” They say that haranguing passersby on the street about your persecution by various movie stars is a form of “free speech.”

Only after a mass murder committed by a psychotic with a firearm do liberals spring to life and suggest a solution: Take away everyone’s guns.

Taking guns away from the mentally stable only makes us less safe: Even psychotics know enough to keep choosing “Gun-Free Zones” for their mass murders. If Americans are serious about preventing massacres like the ones at the Washington Navy Yard, Newtown, Tucson, Aurora and Virginia Tech, it’s time to review our civil commitment laws.

After this latest shooting, will the left finally let us do something about the dangerously mentally ill?

November 20: “Alec Baldwin Vs Liberal Bullies”:

Bullying is the essence of politics for the left. They bully those they disdain, like Palin, with adolescent insults. They bully everyone with the threat of losing a career because of a word. They bully Americans with more than 1 million federal regulations. They bully men through feminist-designed divorce and sexual harassment laws –magically suspended in the case of President Clinton because liberals approved of his pro-abortion views.

That isn’t the rule of law; it’s the rule of bullies.

Conservatives believe people have a right to be left alone, whether from the word police, the government or delusional nuts, no matter how much they want “closure.” But most of all, conservatives don’t think the rules apply only to our political opponents — a liberal trademark, borrowed from the feminists.

We apply our principles even to people whose politics we dislike.

December 11, “Words with Fiends“:

This is how parents waste half a million dollars on their kids’ educations. Instead of learning how to make a point, their kids are learning how to end communication by denying the meaning of words.

December 26, “Kwanzaa: The Holiday Brought to You by the FBI“:

It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga — aka Dr. Maulana Karenga — founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers. He was also a dupe of the FBI.In what was ultimately a foolish gambit, during the madness of the ’60s, the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the group, the better.By that criterion, Karenga’s United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American ’60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police.Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the ’60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution (although some of their most high-profile leaders were drug dealers and murderers). Those were the precepts of Karenga’s United Slaves.United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented “African” names. (That was a huge help to the black community: Three of the four suspects recently arrested for the fatal carjacking at the Short Hills, N.J., mall were named Basim, Hanif and Karif.)It’s as if David Duke invented a holiday called “Anglika,” which he based on the philosophy of Mein Kampf — and clueless public school teachers began celebrating the made-up, racist holiday.

Whether Karenga was a willing dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear. Curiously, in a 1995 interview with Ethnic NewsWatch, Karenga matter-of-factly explained that the forces out to get O.J. Simpson for the “framed” murder of two whites included: “the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, Interpol, the Chicago Police Department” and so on. Karenga should know about FBI infiltration. (He further noted that the evidence against O.J. “was not strong enough to prohibit or eliminate unreasonable doubt” — an interesting standard of proof.)

Look, Coulter knows exactly what she’s doing when she says “outrageous” things that provoke attention — it’s a technique she has adapted from Rush Limbaugh who wrote the introduction to her second book Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right. They both know how to play the mainstream media like a violin. But for all the criticism she’s taken from more soft-spoken conservatives for her “rhetoric” I’m not sure that her reputation actually hurts her when engaging with progressives. Quite the opposite, in fact. So-called liberals expect that every time Coulter opens her mouth she’s going to spit a dagger into their heart. But when it comes to her values and positions she’s genuinely much more reasonable and sensible than one would ever expect. It turns out that what she said in If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans is actually true:

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m a middle-of-the-road moderate and the rest of you are crazy.”

Don’t believe me? Just look at the incredulity of Marc Lamont Hill and CNN’s Don Lemon when she makes arguments about the N-word that resonate with them.

The effect of dialogues like these on progressives whose minds aren’t solidly sealed shut? “Gee, if that Ann Coulter has a smart point to make about this, and she says that just about all right-wingers think what she’s saying, what else might she and the rest of them be right about?”

[Pelham]

10. Ross Douthat
9. Frank Gaffney
8. Daniel Pipes
7. Rich Lowry
6. Jonah Goldberg
5. Mark Steyn
4. Dennis Prager
3. Ben Shapiro
2. Thomas Sowell
1. Ann Coulter

Lowry and Goldberg- two of the girly boys that have turned the once prestigious National Review into a farce. What was once a conservative flagship is now a GOPe mouthpiece.

Ben Shapiro sounds like he’s a precocious 14 year old.

Dennis Prager is an old 60’s liberal of the Hubert Humphrey/ Scoop Jackson sort- he used to acknowledge that but eventually gave up when foolish conservatives insisted that he was one of their own.

Gaffney and Pipes are interesting for their opinions on foreign policy, but those opinions are often from the school of liberal internationalism.

Coulter- when she’s good she’s very, very good. And when she’s bad she’s very, very bad. You just never know what you’re going to get from Ann Coulter.

Sowell is a great academic. But he’s 80 and his book on the housing crisis wasn’t particularly accurate. I suspect he relied on some less than adequate researchers.

Douthat- I never found him worth paying attention to.

Mark Steyn- the most entertaining of the entire bunch. But if these ten are the best that conservatism has to offer in 2013 then there’s plenty of opportunity for some new blood.

[TChad]

Sowell, VDH, and Steyn are essential.

Ann can be spectacular. Emphasis on the "can be."

I'll read anything I see by Gaffney, but he is a foreign affairs specialist.

Goldberg often annoys me. Still, somebody had to write "Liberal Fascism," and I thank him for doing so, though he did a mediocre job.

[ez]

Just want to get a plug in for Mona Charen.