The analogies he has used in the last three days are so off the mark, I have to assume that Sowell has never really studied history or politics.
Trenton was a huge SYMBOLIC victory. It was also George Washington’s Hail Mary pass. It was a must win battle. He had to win it or the war was over. Not because we couldn’t have won without it, but the nation was ready to give up and Washington needed a SYMBOLIC victory to give the nation hope.
Sowell seems to think that any battle that we can’t win is not worth fighting.
We lost Bunker Hill but even though the battle was lost, the fact that we fought it was enough to give America a spiritual victory and a hope that we could ultimately prevail.
Sowell has no concept of the importance of a symbolic victory and seems to think that every battle that we can’t win outright is a battle we should avoid.
Somebody stole Thomas Sowell’s brain.
most excellent post about the importance of symbolic victory!
The George Washington example is not appropriate, because Sowell is comparing a start-up, ragtag army with a conservative base that was victorious under Reagan, Bush, & Bush until betrayed/misled by deceitful, liberal republicans.
He is comparing an army with no previous experience or power, a 1 or 2 on a scale of 10, with a political army that has vast previous experience and a power rating someplace around an 8. The question is “do you allow that power to degrade to a point that future victory is unlikely?”
The Dunkirk example isn’t appropriate because you are comparing a catastrophic battle position with a conservative battle position that is so vital and hopeful that the number of conservatives refusing to vote for Romney could have won it for him if he’d not been a liberal republican. The question here is “Do you withdraw from the field, lose power, and continue to alienate an entire Army group within your overall Army?”
The most crucial battle in the Civil War was Antietam. The South was ascendant after a string of victories, Robert E. Lee had pushed north, and another victory would have probably won the South the recognition of European powers. In that battle of Antietam, Lee won a tactical victory and McClellan a “strategic” one of such small consequence that Lincoln replaced him. Lincoln traded one weak general for another, Ambrose Burnside, who history records as a general with such lack of imagination that he never should have been promoted above Colonel. Burnside went from Antietam to a humiliating defeat at Fredericksburg.
The South was at its strongest, and Lee’s army, while small, could easily have been augmented by forces in the west in any continuing push north. It was a critical moment, because Lee returned to Virginia and continued retreats into Virginia simply degraded the South’s fighting ability over time until they were overpowered as the North finally found its fighting legs and its economic power began to bear down.
Recognizing the tipping point in your power is crucial. If you refuse to fight and allow your power to degrade below that tipping point, then you have doomed yourself to defeat.
We are in no Dunkirk at the moment. Social conservative power could have won the last election. It could easily win the mid-terms of 2014, but NOT with quisling liberals pretending to be conservatives. These traitors side with the enemy to promote liberalism at enough critical points that a rational conservative must use Occam’s Razor:
“They are against us because they are not on our side.”
I guess Mr. Sowell is suggesting that John Boehner is “our George Washington or Winston Churchill”? We’re in worse shape than I thought!
But, his summary of the history is actually quite accurate. And Trenton was more than symbolic - it led to Princeton and basically driving the Brits back to NYC. Washington knew how weak his situation and picked his battles, often tricking Brits (as in after Trenton) into thinking he was still around when he actually left. He never shirked from a battle, only too anxious for it, but he wasn’t stupid.
I am skeptical of Cruz. I could swear he did something “unconservative” recently. I really don’t trust anyone in politics to be really “conservative”.
I don't doubt Sowell's memory of history or politics, or of economics. Several Trillion Dollars in stolen treasure will buy a whole lot of treason.
Sowell and Williams both sold out a few years ago to the Global Free Traitor scams, when any freshman economics student could see that it was a scam designed to destroy every economy it touched. And it did. And it continues to today.
I agree with Sowell 99% of the time. But, being from Texas, I would remind him of the Alamo, which Texas lost but it helped win overall Indepedence from Mexico.