Stumbled across this quote from Dr Sowell. Sadly it’s pretty relevant.
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Let's be honest for a moment, this isn't entire accurate, is it?
I'm pretty sure complaining isn't going to cut it for canonization. That requires threatening a pregnant woman with a gun.
What you are saying should be satire but it isn’t. Crazy world we live in. I remember Candace Owens said she wanted to interview the woman Floyd robbed at gunpoint. I hope she does.
Nothing is beneath a white supremacist like Candace Owens, pretending that the woman was the victim there and not Floyd.
Ha! I can see a headline like that from Slate or The Root.
I mean, it's highly likely that she was black, but for some reason, being black doesn't get you any sympathy when you're the victim of a crime. Unless the criminal is white!
I've never heard a Sowell line I didn't like.
Me neither. Makes me happy to see a lot of young ppl discovering him thought YouTube. That’s how I got into him and Milton Friedman
Honest story, I bought two of his books solely because they were discounted. I hated him before even knowing him, because I knew he was a conservative. The programming is strong for anyone who has the misfortune to have grown up in this day and age.
I'm still not a conservative, but it made me realize that social conservatism is intellectually respectable, not blind bigotry and religion. This coinciding with social liberalism going completely off the rails, it sort of did convert me to social conservatism.
I still disagree with a lot of his economic ideas, but even there you cannot argue with the logic. I just make different trade-offs. Where I think Sowell is completely wrong, is in his opposition to anti-trust and his argument that companies will not discriminate because it hurts them - as ironically demonstrated by their discrimination against conservatives.
Good points. I grew up with conservative parents so a bit different experience. But in theory I get his point because discrimination should hurt a company when you discriminate based on politics but a lot of companies don’t seem to care
I guess that's the old 'Jim Crow restaurant in the South' argument in favor of legislation. That it obviously hurts you if you discriminate against blacks, but if all your white patrons leave if you do serve blacks, it will still be in your interests to keep blacks out. So you need the hatchet of government power to break that.
In the long run, it might work out. Companies that keep their SJW employees in check will do better, as they can use conservative talent. But like the famous economist called Milton Keynes by AOC said: in the long run, we're all dead.
My greatest worry is that people will surrender their principles for expediency.
I fear that as well. Also he makes the point that it’s easier to discriminate when you don’t have to pay a cost. So it’s easy for local govt to impose Jim Crow laws. So if a white owner of a hamburger place doesn’t care about race just money he is impacted but the best example would be the Plessy vs Ferguson case. The train wanted integrated trains because they would have to pay for making more cars to accommodate a segregated train.
Which is why the civil rights bill was the wrong response aside from neutering freedom of association. The appropriate bill is that government shall not write laws that directly discriminate against its citizens based on inherent physical traits.
Yea I’ve come to realize that forcing people together who don’t want to associate is wrong. While I personally will get to know anyone and wish that the world held hands and sang about friendship, that is unrealistic. I’m all for voluntary segregation and voluntary integration
I love Friedman, I find myself thinking of his "you care more about the motive than you do the result" line a lot these days.
But Sowell has such a wonderful, accessible writing style. If Thomas Sowell had said things liberals wanted to hear, he'd be a household name in the Western world.
It goes to show how much incentive there is for academics to have the 'right' opinions. like that fake Tolkien scholar who praised Amazon's LotR, and immediately gets hired to consult on a LotR video game.
I don’t trust any Tolkien scholar who praises that show. But yea it’s a shame that people like Kendi get much more press than Sowell
In crypto, they are demonizing "proof of work", and trying to normalize "Proof of stake". Proof of stake is being paid, and having more rights to vote on projects for already having money.
Clearly they despise the working class on every level, and in every sector. While assuming that they should be paid for 'leading'. But that leadership, only has one goal, which is being paid for that 'leadership'.
My big regret with Sowell is only finding out about him around 2018 or 2019. Guy was already in his 80s by that point and he's getting on up in years. Hardly any appearances on shows, and is he even writing anything right now?
Better to have learned about him than not. I just hate that he could go any second, I can't think of any contemporary still-living theorist that matches him. But that could just be the vestiges of the typical American non-leftist quasi-fetishization of any black person who happens to agree with them. Hard to shake off after decades in public education and the university system.
A great mind and a great person, but would he be so well known among the rightist (or, non-left at the least) circles online if he wasn't black? I hope so. I can't say I'm well-read enough on his work and works of other contemporary thinkers to comment on that.*
*Picked up a book of his for my Dad some time back but it's buried with a bunch of other books somewhere atm. I wanted to pick up Black Rednecks and White Liberals but that was out of print at the time. Quite surprising
Black Rednecks and White Liberals is a great book. Also includes a good summary on the global history of slavery. But you are right. Can’t just worship the dude because he is black. Hold him to the same standards as everyone else. I mean look at amazing Lucas. Seemed conservatives then he went full blm. Praised the riots and didn’t think David Dorn killing was a big deal.
Never heard of this guy but pretty wild if true. Just from his channel's front-page he seems like your typical conservative streamer. Would never guess just based on this that he was with BLM. (Like, come on just look at the org's own stated values and mission!)
Not a streamer, but seeing Daryl Davis (the musician who got hundreds of Klan members to leave the Klan) on his recent media circuit was wild. Seemed sensible several years back but then he's on Tim Pool's show a month or two ago and he's all on-board with "reparations", "systemic racism", the whole nine yards.
Yea. Made me sad. But then you have white guys who turn like Hunter Avellone. And there are those like Larry Elder who have been calling out race hustlers for years
He's still writing stuff. His most recent books are one on Discrimination and Disparities and another one on the bankruptcy of the public schooling system. However, these are a good deal shorter than his magna opera of the past.
I had the same sense about him that you did, and I (hope I) don't have this racial nonsense as a non-American.
I will say that there is possibly someone out there who is a greater thinker who is a specialist, for example on Byzantine history between 565 and 632, or the microeconomics of price rounding. But Sowell is without any doubt the greatest generalist out there. I know, I know, damning with faint praise, as generalists tend to be bunk.
On a lark I decided to see if my law school's library happened to have any of his work and to my surprise they did! Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study
Already about 1/4 through (it's only 198p not including the references) and it's pretty illuminating. Had no idea India had been engaging in affirmative action policies much longer than the US.
It'd be interesting seeing Sowell revisit the topic now that the text is 18 years old.
I can generalize a lot and say that the promotion of weakness as virtue is the mistake of the left (SJWs). The weak are to be pitied, even protected. Not lauded. What do we think happens when you promote weakness? You get a lot of weak people. We should be encouraging people to make themselves difficult to victimize.
And they need to stop glorifying being a victim