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As taxpayers, we have quietly accepted the fact that our taxes will be spent to pay big bucks for all sorts of ugly, twisted metal to be displayed in front of or inside government buildings, in the name of 'art' that was obviously never meant to give the public any enjoyment and often represented a thumbing of the artist's nose at the public.
Thomas Sowell -
How a man who holds the entire population of a country as his prisoners, and punishes the families of those who escape, can be admired by people who call themselves liberals is one of the many wonders of the human mind's ability to rationalize. Yet such is the case with Fidel Castro.
Thomas Sowell
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If politicians stopped meddling with things they don't understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.
Thomas Sowell -
Social values in general are incrementally variable: neither safety, diversity, rational articulation, nor morality is categorically a good thing to have more of, without limits. All are subject to diminishing returns, and ultimately negative returns.
Thomas Sowell -
Apparently the only people who are supposed to be responsible are the taxpayers - and they are increasingly made responsible for other people's irresponsibility.
Thomas Sowell -
The more people who are dependent on government handouts, the more votes the left can depend on for an ever-expanding welfare state.
Thomas Sowell -
Just what is it that academics have to fear if they stand up for common decency, instead of letting campus barbarians run amok?
Thomas Sowell -
The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country.
Thomas Sowell
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One of the painfully sobering realizations that come from reading history is the utter incompetence that is possible among leaders of whole nations and empires - and the blind faith that such leaders can nevertheless inspire among the people who are enthralled by their words or their posturing.
Thomas Sowell -
Many people believe in eliminating gaps and eliminating poverty. They don't realize that in some sense those two things are antithetical. If you were to double everyone's income, or if everyone's income were doubled naturally over the course of time, then you would reduce poverty significantly but you would have also increased the gap.
Thomas Sowell -
I suspect that even most conservatives would prefer to live in the kind of world conjured up in the liberals' imagination rather than in the kind of world we are in fact stuck with.
Thomas Sowell -
It is hard to read a newspaper or watch a television newscast without encountering someone who has come up with a new 'solution' to society's 'problems.'
Thomas Sowell -
High tax rates in the upper income brackets allow politicians to win votes with class warfare rhetoric, painting their opponents as defenders of the rich. Meanwhile, the same politicians can win donations from the rich by creating tax loopholes that can keep the rich from actually paying those higher tax rates - or perhaps any taxes at all. What is worse than class warfare is phony class warfare. Slippery talk about 'fairness' is at the heart of this fraud by politicians seeking to squander more of the nation's resources.
Thomas Sowell -
Some people say that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. But the runaway taxes of our time are the price we pay for being gullible.
Thomas Sowell
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Just as a poetic discussion of the weather is not meteorology, so an issuance of moral pronouncements or political creeds about the economy is not economics. Economics is a study of cause-and-effect relationships in an economy.
Thomas Sowell -
No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing class of parasites living off those who produce.
Thomas Sowell -
There is no talent so ardently supported, nor generously rewarded, as the ability to convince parasites they are victims.
Thomas Sowell -
One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans-- anything except reason.
Thomas Sowell -
'Fair' is one of the most dangerous concepts in politics. Since no two people are likely to agree on what is 'fair,' this means that there must be some third party with power - the government - to impose its will. The road to despotism is paved with 'fairness'.
Thomas Sowell -
What sense would it make to classify a man as handicapped because he is in a wheelchair today, if he is expected to be walking again in a month, and competing in track meets before the year is out? Yet Americans are generally given 'class' labels on the basis of their transient location in the income stream. If most Americans do not stay in the same broad income bracket for even a decade, their repeatedly changing 'class' makes class itself a nebulous concept. Yet the intelligentsia are habituated, if not addicted, to seeing the world in class terms.
Thomas Sowell
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Capitalism is not an 'ism.' It is closer to being the opposite of an 'ism,' because it is simply the freedom of ordinary people to make whatever economic transactions they can mutually agree to.
Thomas Sowell -
Subsidies are a shell game, not a net addition to national wealth.
Thomas Sowell -
Fundamentalist religion is the most pervasive vision of central planning, though many fundamentalists may oppose human central planning as a usurpation or "playing God.This is consistent with the fundamentalist vision of an unconstrained God and a highly constrained man.
Thomas Sowell -
Those government officials who want more power are not going to stop unless they get stopped.
Thomas Sowell