Thomas Sowell

SOWELL: The blame game

After virtually every disaster created by Beltway politicians, you can hear the sound of feet scurrying for cover in Washington, see fingers pointing in every direction away from Washington and watch all sorts of scapegoats being hauled up before congressional committees to be denounced on television for the disasters created by members of the committee who are lecturing them.

May 16, 2009

SOWELL: ‘Empathy’ revisited

The great Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is not the kind of justice who would have been appointed under President Obama's criterion of "empathy" for certain groups.

May 10, 2009

SOWELL: ‘Empathy’ versus law

Justice David H. Souter's retirement from the Supreme Court presents President Obama with his first opportunity to appoint someone to the High Court. People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic or whatever, miss the point.

May 9, 2009

SOWELL: Magic words don’t work magic

China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government bonds. But instead of buying more of those bonds as our skyrocketing national debt leads to more bonds being issued, China has been selling some of its U.S. government bonds this year.

April 17, 2009

SOWELL: Music once was musical

We have become such suckers for words that politicians can spend our tax money like drunken sailors, provided they call it "investment."

April 11, 2009

SOWELL: The GOP’s great divide

As if it is not enough that they have been decimated by the Democrats in the last couple of elections, the Republican survivors are now turning their guns on each other.

March 21, 2009

SOWELL: Subsidizing bad decisions

Now that the federal government has decided to bail out homeowners in trouble, with mortgage loans up to $729,000, that raises some questions that should be asked but seldom are asked.

March 11, 2009

SOWELL: Is talk cheap?

They say talk is cheap. But in fact it can be devastatingly expensive. Among the generation of Germans who were enthralled by Adolf Hitler's eloquence, millions paid with their lives and their children's lives for empowering this demagogue to lead them to ruin and infamy.

March 7, 2009

SOWELL: Fatal trajectory

An increasing number of recent letters and e-mails from readers strike a note, not only of unhappiness with the way things are going in our society, but a note of despair.

March 3, 2009

SOWELL: ‘Not one of us’

If Barack Obama has been the most remarkable phenomenon of the recent political scene, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin must be second. The emotional responses to each - especially by the media and the intelligentsia - go beyond anything that can be explained by the usual political differences of opinion on issues of the day.

February 28, 2009

SOWELL: Upside down economics

From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us.

February 22, 2009

SOWELL: Random thoughts

One of the most important skills for political success is the ability to make confident assertions of absurdities or lies.

February 21, 2009

SOWELL: The rush

The big story last week was the incredible congressional rush to pass a bill that was more than 1,000 pages long in just two days - after which it sat on the president's desk for three days while the Obamas were away on a holiday.

February 20, 2009

SOWELL: Deprogramming students

Letters from parents often complain of a sense of futility in trying to argue with their own children, who have been fed a steady diet of the politically correct vision of the world, from elementary school to the university.

February 14, 2009

SOWELL: Republicans as Democrats

A brief glimmer of sanity among congressional Republicans has been followed, almost immediately, by a return to the more traditional Washington insanity.

February 5, 2009

SOWELL: Obama’s stimulus plan — Hurry up and wait

Everyone is talking about how much money the government is spending, but very little attention is being paid to where they are spending it or what they are buying with it.

January 29, 2009

SOWELL: Lured to disaster

Behind the housing boom and bust was one of those alluring but undefined phrases that are so popular in politics - "affordable housing."

January 25, 2009

SOWELL: Auspicious beginning

If making speeches is one of the tests of a president of the United States, Barack Obama has passed his first test with flying colors. He has understood the varied constituencies, and the various hopes and fears he had to address. He said the kinds of things that all these constituencies wanted to hear.

January 22, 2009

SOWELL: The Bush legacy

Whatever history's verdict on the Bush administration might be, it is likely to be very different from what we hear from the talking heads on television or read from the know-it-alls on editorial pages.

January 20, 2009

SOWELL: Emergency book review

This is an emergency book review. Before you do anything else, make a note to read "The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care" by Sally C. Pipes. It might literally save your life, by checking the political stampede toward a government-controlled medical profession -- usually presented politically as "universal health care."

January 17, 2009