Thomas Sowell

SOWELL: Obama and the law

One of the biggest and most long-lasting "changes" to expect if Barack Obama becomes president will be the kinds of federal judges he appoints. These include Supreme Court justices, as well as other federal justices across the country, all with lifetime tenure.

October 30, 2008

SOWELL: The real Obama: Part IV

Barack Obama's supporters often try to sidestep questions about his character and judgment by saying that we should stick to what they arbitrarily define as "the real issues."

October 15, 2008

SOWELL: The real Obama: Part II

A recent Republican campaign ad sarcastically described as Barack Obama's "one accomplishment" his supporting a bill to promote sex education in kindergarten.

October 13, 2008

SOWELL: The real Obama

Critics of Sen. Barack Obama make a strategic mistake when they talk about his "past associations." That just gives his many defenders in the media an opportunity to counterattack against "guilt by association."

October 12, 2008

SOWELL: Dems avoid blame for crisis

Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time."

October 7, 2008

SOWELL: Penny-wise politics

Congress is never more ridiculous than when it tries to look like it is serious.

October 3, 2008

SOWELL: A political ‘solution’: Part II

Estimates of how much money a government program will cost are notoriously unreliable. Estimates of the cost of the current bailout in the financial markets run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and some say it may reach or exceed a trillion.

September 26, 2008

SOWELL: Political ‘solution’

Who was it who said, "crack-brained meddling by the authorities" can "aggravate an existing crisis"? Ronald Reagan? Milton Friedman? Adam Smith? Not even close. It was Karl Marx. Unlike most leftists today, Marx studied economics.

September 25, 2008

SOWELL: Idols and crowds

"A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than to an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence."

September 20, 2008

SOWELL: Random thoughts

If you took all the fraud out of politics, there might not be a lot left. The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer — and they don't want explanations that do not give them that.

August 30, 2008

SOWELL: Georgia on our mind

What is happening in the republic of Georgia is all too reminiscent of what happened back in 1956, when Russian tanks rolled into Hungary - and the West did nothing.

August 23, 2008