Free Republic

The Fall of Man (Theodore Poulakis, 1692)At 96 years of age, Thomas Sowell is one of the most formidable minds in contemporary American thought. Without any desire to bask in the media spotlight, he personifies integrity as a scholar, a luminary whose body of work combines empirical rigor, historical breadth, and an unyielding commitment to human dignity irrespective of race. His insistence on true meritocracy—judging individuals by their capacities and achievements rather than by collective grievances or engineered outcomes—marks him as a rational defender of the individual against the sentimental collectivism that has come to dominate elite discourse. Sowell’s philosophy...

Beneath the partisan divide, America is discontented and desperate for change. Voters remain deadlocked in a partisan divide over which candidate to support, but this split is not indicative of the bipartisan discontent felt by most Americans, a new national poll by Mother Jones reveals*. Nearly two thirds of American voters say the country is "on the wrong track" and most -- including a majority of independents and even many moderate Republicans -- believe that they are personally worse off than three years ago on a broad range of issues, from their tax burden and job opportunities to their access...

<p>Jubilant crowds in Baghdad show that President Bush and his team were spectacularly right and his critics spectacularly wrong. And this says something about who are the smart guys and who are the dullards in this society -- or at least, what kind of mindset leads to good judgments.</p>