Too 'Complex'?: Part III (Thomas Sowell)

GOPUSA ^ | May 15, 2008 | Thomas Sowell

[vets son]

It sounds to me that you would like to ban just the stores that Sowell is writing about here but for different reasons. The reasons make no difference if the result is the same. Just like Sowell says, it’s your option, don’t patronize those stores or move if you don’t like the results of them moving into your hood.

[Tax-chick]

The chains also have considerable savvy when they scout new locations, so instead of coming in “fair and square”, they are looking for eminent domain takings, incentives to move in, as well as tax abatement offers. They present pitches to P&Z boards and city councils that have been successful in the past, and they use all sorts of tricks to undermine opposition.

This is simply another example of Dr. Sowell's point about people's using the power of government to enforce their own prejudices. In this case, it's the "prejudice" that it's a very nice thing for Mayor X and Councilmember Y to get a nice big donation from Corporation Z.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The reason NIMBY exists is because people believe that having lived in a place for a while, contributing to it, and enjoying it, that it is worth protecting from those who seek to quickly profit from its exploitation, when that exploitation does not improve it, and in fact takes away from its desirability. “If you don’t like it, then move out” is unreasonable.

Because this desire to exploit is so great, neighborhoods across the US have been forced to put limits on growth, development, and zoning. There are always those who would take advantage of a place to abuse it, otherwise.

As a rule of thumb, few would find anything wrong with putting limits on the construction of waste dumps, a crematorium, an abattoir, etc. next to a residential area, especially if they are intended to displace things like churches, schools, or residences.

Just owning property does not give a corporation an unlimited right to use that property as they see fit.

This also applies to limits to type of business as well. There is no compelling right that every business on a block be franchises that only employ minimum wage workers. Zoning should also encompass things like business diversity in an area, such as limiting the number of bars, reasonable business hours, advertising and building design, etc.

Because franchises tend to cluster, know no moderation, and also tend to be litigious, it is just easier to prohibit them from an area entirely. Experiencing this to some degree already, corporations have taken to both trying to subvert city councils and to use SLAPP tactics against local opposition.

So on one side there is NIMBY, and on the other, some degree of ruthlessness. There is no gentle approach, anymore.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Would to God that an African-American such as Dr Sowell would run for President

Your comment makes me wonder if Dr. Sowell even calls himself an “African-American”?

Professor Sowell doesn't like being labeled like that. He especially does not want a book of his on, say, economics categorized under, "books by black authors" - which is, as he notes, a ghetto in the bookstore. He writes an economics book, he wants people who look under "economics" in the bookstore to find it there.

On the point of the desirability of having a president who is as wise as I perceive Professor Sowell to be, there can be no question about that. I'm right on board, as my tagline indicates. Except that, knowing as I do that someone else will be nominated for president by the Republicans and that Thomas Sowell himself considers himself too old and his health inadequate to such a position, my tagline is actually a call for a Republican VP nominee who is comparable to Sowell in wisdom, in patriotism, and in racial/cultural heritage.

I argue that the provision in the Twelfth Amendment incentivizing the nomination of a VP candidate from a different state than the presidential candidate is actually an, AFAIK the only, affirmative action provision in the Constitution. And that the intent of that provision is that the VP nominee be chosen to promote national unity - literally across state lines, but in principle across whatever divide the presidential candidate and his party may consider dangerous to national unity.

I remember Bob Dole, in his 1996 acceptance speech, verbally protesting as emphatically as possible that the Republican Party was not racist. Did he get any more credit on that score than any other Republican presidential candidate? No. In fact, the memorable part of the VP debate that year was Al Gore smearing the Republican Party as a whole by complimenting Jack Kemp that he was not racist like the rest of the Republican Party (and Jack Kemp, by accepting that "compliment," destroyed his standing in the Republican Party). IMHO there is nothing short of the nomination of a black VP which will do any good on that score.

Will the nomination of a black VP enable McCain to get more black votes than Barak Obama? Not on you life. It won't even win him as much as 10% of black vote against Obama. Then why do it? Because such a candidate would contrast with Barak "Jeremy Wright" Obama, and the differences would show the deficiencies of Obama in bold relief. It might help with some blacks - but it will make a positive difference for every group you can name except racists, whether white or black. And though I am prepared to believe that there are white racists out there who are so extreme that they would reject a ticket with a patriotic black at the bottom of it even when the other major ticket has a black racist at the head of the ticket, at this late date I am not prepared to believe that there are enough kooks like that to matter in a national election.