Nov 28, 2023 – succinct exposes, I recommend Richard Pipes’ “Communism” (from which I drew much information for this series), and the incomparable Thomas … Sowell has written.…

Jan 18, 2008 – It is becoming increasingly and painfully clear that voters in both parties are having a hard time settling on a front runner. Not only have different people won different primaries thus far, no one won a majority in any primary in either party -- until Hillary Clinton, running virtually unopposed...

Jan 15, 2008 – It was front-page news on the January 14th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle that blacks by the tens of thousands have left the San Francisco Bay area since the 1990 census. Since my book Applied Economics analyzed this situation a few years ago, it was nice to see...

Jan 15, 2008 – A conservative friend of mine recently commented, "I'm fine with a black president -- if it's Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell." … It probably doesn't hurt that Williams and Sowell -- economists and writers, both of them -- regularly unburden themselves on the topic … Sowell.…

Jan 30, 2008 – Both political parties seem determined that the federal government should create a "stimulus package" of things designed to cushion a downturn in the economy. That alone should be enough to make us remember that "the devil is always in the details," because things that are bipartisan are often twice...

Jan 29, 2008 – Whatever one may think about Barack Obama as a candidate or as a potential President, his candidacy has brought something new to the American political scene. His stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses, in a state where more than 90 percent of the population is white, was an unmistakable...

Jan 24, 2008 – Among the painful signs of our time are the shocked reactions to Chuck Norris' raising the question of whether Senator John McCain is too old to be president. Have we reached the point where we have so many politically correct taboos that we can't even talk sense? Does a man...

Jan 23, 2008 – Everybody expects politicians to lie, especially during an election year. You can bet the rent money on it. Among the many lies we can expect to hear this election year, none will be bigger or more often repeated, in the media as well as by politicians, than the lie that...

Jan 22, 2008 – Most people have too much of a sense of decency and too much common sense to have gone along with those horrors unless someone found a way to turn off their thinking and turn on their emotions. That is how Jim Jones led hundreds of people to their deaths at...

Jan 21, 2008 – Today, any black leaders who don't adhere to the party line - a Ward Connerly or Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell - are called traitors…

Feb 6, 2008 – The other day, a reader e-mailed me to ask for an explanation of the gold standard. He had heard it advocated in one of the political speeches. Any responsible answer to his question would have taken more time than I could spare, but I looked through several introductory economics...

Feb 5, 2008 – The front-runners in both political parties -- that is, Hillary Clinton and John McCain -- are making "experience" their big talking point. But what kind of "experience"? Both have been around in politics for decades. But just what did they accomplish -- and how did it benefit the country? Whether...

Feb 1, 2008 – Economist and syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell says he has lost track of how many books he’s written on economics, history, social … Professor Sowell, 77, is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution on the campus of Stanford…

Feb 1, 2008 – We have been hearing for years that Senator John McCain gives "straight talk" and his bus has been endlessly referred to as the "straight talk express." But endless repetition does not make something true. The fact that McCain makes short, blunt statements does not make him a straight-talker. There...

Feb 19, 2008 – The Berkeley city council has made national news by telling Marine Corps recruiters that they are unwelcome in that bastion of the academic left. It is a shame that Berkeley is not on some island in the South Pacific, because then they could be given their independence and left to...

Feb 14, 2008 – Those who put a high value on words may recoil at the title of Jonah Goldberg's new book, "Liberal Fascism." As a result, they may refuse to read it, which will be their loss -- and a major loss. Those who value substance over words, however, will find in this...

Feb 12, 2008 – Even before Mitt Romney bowed out -- with class, by the way -- supporters of John McCain, and Republican party pooh-bahs in general, were chastising those conservatives in the media who had criticized Senator McCain. Those who leveled their attacks at Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservatives who had...

Feb 11, 2008 – Obama and Thomas are about as far apart politically as it gets. … Thomas also shares his transformation from liberal to conservative, which included intense interaction with Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams … Thomas, p. 274.…

Feb 28, 2008 – It has almost become something of a joke when some "global warming" conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather. But stampedes and hysteria are no joke -- and creating stampedes and hysteria has become a major activity of those hyping a global warming "crisis."...

Feb 27, 2008 – People on the left often use other countries as examples of things that we should do. If other countries have a government-run medical system, then we should have one too, they say. If other countries control prices, then we should control prices -- or so the reasoning goes. Almost never...

Feb 26, 2008 – The front page of the New York Times has increasingly become the home of editorials disguised as "news" stories. Too often it has become the home of hoaxes. Going back some years, it was the Tawana Brawley hoax that she had been gang-raped by a bunch of white men....

Mar 6, 2008 – Writing in 1954, Lionel Trilling said that most conservatives do not "express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas." One of the perks of being a liberal is disdaining people who are not liberals. However, as of 1954, Trilling's dismissive...

Mar 4, 2008 – It is fascinating watching politicians say how they are going to rescue the "rust belt" regions where jobs are disappearing and companies are either shutting down or moving elsewhere. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is being blamed for the jobs going elsewhere. Barack Obama blames the Clinton administration...

Mar 19, 2008 – Did Senator Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia convince people that he is still a viable candidate to be President of the United States, despite the adverse reactions to statements by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright? The polls and the primaries will answer that question. The great unasked question for Senator...

Mar 18, 2008 – There is something both poignant and galling about the candidacy of Barack Obama. Any American, regardless of party or race, has to find it heartening that the country has reached the point where a black candidate for President of the United States sweeps so many primaries in states where the...