42 Replies to “‘At What Price?’”

  4. At what price is exactly the right question.
    Liberals always say if it saves one life.
    At what price?
    If we spend four million on a gun registry and it saves one life then that’s good, right?
    How many lives could have been saved if we spent that money on something else?
    Here’s a modest proposal.
    Instead of taking money out of my pocket to pay for dysfunctional people to have kids that will be a drain on society for their entire lives, how about letting me spend that money on having my own kids who I will raise with good values and who will become contributing members of society?

  6. Thomas Sowell’s website, with links to his many books and written articles:
    http://www.tsowell.com/
    He’s appeared many times on Peter Robinson’s “Uncommon Knowledge” series, available for viewing on YouTube…
    Well worth viewing, choose any topic, they’re all good.

  7. Just put a few of Sowell’s books on my Amazon order list for winter reading. That’s one of the most concise distinctions between classical liberalism and left-loonyism that I’ve heard in a long time.
    Ironic that American classical liberals are now considered “conservatives” or libertarians and statists are considered “progressive”. One of the worries of the US founding fathers was the development of a monarchy (which is what the self-annointed political class essentially are) and we may yet see the 2nd amendment put to the use it was intended for. I can’t see the US situation having any sort of happy ending.

  8. Sowell is a hero for liberty and liberal democracy.
    dance, it is not about saving one life. That is an excuse for controlling people’s lives.
    Loki, good choice.
    John, take note of his colour. Joohn, yoo hoo! Drive by racist smear and then takes off.

  9. Interesting ideas enunciated in an intelligent way by a man who thinks about things substantively and rationally – however he is deeply confused in his political spectrum/labeling by ascribing to conservativism the core values of fiscal and social libertarianism.
    Classic conservatism was classist, elitist and oligarchic in both economics and governance. This man expresses the laissez faire ideal of both capitalism and governance. The “hands off” concept in both economics and civil governance is a core libertarian ideal dating back to Locke and JS Mill.
    Today’s “conservatives” have more in common with classic liberals like Locke, Smith and Von Mises than classic Tories like Malthus and Lord Rochester

  10. bear – “conservative” means “wants to use what has been proven to work in the past”, does it not? IMHO Dr. Sowell’s historical knowledge means that he goes a little further back than most of us do to look at what works. The biggest growth time in the US for all citizens was back when it was most libertarian.

  11. When he dies, we are SO screwed.
    Posted by: Kathy Shaidle at December 3, 2012 6:31 PM
    ==================================================
    No, his legacy will live on as long as we keep it alive.
    Tradition is how a civilization is built and maintained, for example Socrates, Newton and Luther died long ago but their wisdom guides us still.
    Write down his three questions on a note and tape it beside your computer screen.
    Memorize and use them in challenging each and every government policy and program.
    1. Compared to what?
    2. At what cost?
    3. What hard* evidence do you have?
    *(Hard evidence is the key, as the P.C. crowd crows about “evidence” based decisions. They really mean “soft” evidence that can’t stand up to scientific critique or methodology.)

  12. the bear at December 3, 2012 5:36 PM
    “Pretty loose use of the word ‘conservative’ he strikes me more as a libertarian.”
    That could indicate that you confuse libertarian with anarchist…….lotta that going about….

  13. Hmmm, doesn’t wear a hat on backwards. I like him.
    Disclaimer:
    I always liked what I hear articulated by Mr Sowell.

  15. Loki – “Vision of the Annointed” is his most philosophical. Not recommended as a first read unless you like deep and challenging thought that is so common-sensical that it doesn’t stay will you. (I’ve found I have that problem with most practical philosophers, that their words are already so ingrained in how I think that the main point just doesn’t stick with me.)
    “Basic Economics” is a non-math Economics primer in most aspects of the free market, complete with many, many examples of all of his points from history. It is a university textbook, but doesn’t read as one. The more recent the version, the more recent the examples of “this was tried and didn’t work. This is being tried now, here’s what will likely happen this time because here’s what happened last time it was tried”.
    The book I’ve enjoyed the most is “Conquests and Cultures”, an international history focusing on 4 regions for different and prolonged periods of time. The essays in “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” were good as standalones, but didn’t make their points as thoroughly as the other works I’ve mentioned. Enjoy your reading, there’s a lot of interesting info coming your way.

  17. ward – nope, sorry, you’re thinking of Walter E Williams. Dr. Williams does often have Dr. Sowell on as a guest, however.

  18. Like Mark Steyn , hes one of the few sane voices in a World decending into a moral, social, sea of quicksand.

  19. Sowell is one of the best.
    The Progressive (no more Liberals just Progressives) knows what it wants and why. The Conservative, being a reactionary, only knows what it does not want not what it does want or why. The former succeed and the latter fail utterly.

  20. Ken (Kulak)
    I guess I didn’t make my point properly.
    I use a mental short hand sometimes that assumes everyone here is on the same page.
    I know it’s not about saving just one life.
    And I know that liberals use it to control other people’s lives.
    With total caprice.
    I worked with an engineer in Saskatoon who hated smoking and heartily approved of legislation aimed at curtailing and penalizing it on the basis of it’s impact on the health care system.
    Yet, he routinely smoked dope, the effects of which will be treated using the money I have paid in cigarette taxes.
    He had a son in another city that he neglected save his child support payments.
    While I have two children in my house that I guide and support every day, I’ll be paying for the consequences of his parental neglect years after my kids leave the house to become productive citizens.
    He bought one house and then another.
    The first one he bought with help from the bank of momanddad.
    The second he bought stretching himself thin and then he got laid off.
    When he defaults, the CMHC will pay and we’ll pay.
    I rent.
    If I default, I’ll get evicted and my landlord will sue me for the balance.
    Society is on the hook for his choices and I’m on the hook for mine.
    The difference between us is that I’m a conservative and I pay my way up front and he’s a liberal who gets us to pay his way on the back end.

  21. The issue is not that man is “flawed”, it’s that man’s tool of survival is his reason and reason does not provide automatic knowledge and is not infallible.
    Another problem is that a person may be exposed as a child to emotional torments or upheavals well before he is old enough to handle them properly, and they may have lasting consequences on his life, leading him down the wrong path.

  23. I got hooked on Thomas Sowell when he was a columnist for the Western Standard. He often has columns over at the National Review Online. His clear and concise writing is refreshing.
    Like me, he ain’t getting any younger.

  24. LAS >
    “The Conservative, being a reactionary, only knows what it does not want not what it does want or why.”
    Don’t you have some police cars to occupy and poop on somewhere?

  25. Political terminology has been all screwed up for a long time. Since the time that the leftist who are communists decided that communism wouldn’t sell in America so they had to call themselves something else. “Progressive” has been a code word for communist since the 1920’s. The American republic was founded by liberals. The left managed to get that word to change in meaning to mean socialist, so people who would have been liberals in the past had to start using the term libertarian to mean liberal. Foreigners often ask, how the word liberal became a pejorative in the US. It happened when people started to use it to mean socialist.
    This is why we now have issues on the right. All the old definitions have changed but everyone still isn’t using the same dictionary. The terms left and right haven’t had any meaning since the French Revolution. Liberal means exactly the opposite of what it originally meant, and “conservatives” are now trying to conserve something that hasn’t existed in 100 years.
    I use the word “statist” to describe people who believe in the primacy of the state over the individual, and I haven’t got a really good word to describe the opposite.

  26. minuteman, I think the opposite of ‘statism’ is individual freedom or, economically, capitalism.
    LAS: you wrote “The Progressive (no more Liberals just Progressives) knows what it wants and why. The Conservative, being a reactionary, only knows what it does not want not what it does want or why. The former succeed and the latter fail utterly.”
    I don’t see the Conservative as ‘reactionary’ but as clear sighted and rational. The Tea Party, to me, represents the conservative agenda: limited and non-intrusive government, low taxes, freedom for individual enterprise and thought, balanced budget.
    The progressives want statist control over the population, setting up a two-class system of Rulers over Ruled. To create this, they must impoverish the population, both politically and economically, as well as control information. I think we’ve seen lots of examples of this, from the most totalitarian to the current Democrats and NDP/Liberal regimes.
    Do you consider this a successful agenda?

  27. Sowell: Compared to What?
    In my recent austro-libertarian explorations, I’ve encountered this term: The Nirvana Fallacy.
    On the LEFT capitalism (free markets) is always compared to an impossible ideal, found wanting, and rejected in favour of perfect government solutions (that always fail).
    One day, while reading Mises, I had an epiphany. Mises often wrote that if only politicans could learn that the results of the actions they are proposing would be counter to their objectives, we would be so much better off. And then it hit me: ‘But Luddie, they don’t have the good and noble objectives you impute to them’! And if I’m not mistaken, this is the central truth of Public Choice economics: that politicans pursue their self interests like everyone else.
    And this is why the great Murray Rothbard entitled one of his masterworks: Power and Market: the two seldom mesh. And this is why Keynesianism just just won’t die!

  28. me no dhimmi, exactly right. Politicians are often focused, not on the strength of the nation and the well-being of the people but on their own power.
    For example, Obama at the moment has only one political interest: Power.
    More power for Himself as an Autocrat because, psychologically, he pathologically needs more and more control over others. And, vindictive anger at the GOP; they dared to oppose Him. He wants to destroy them, and any who supported them.
    So he’ll throw the economy into a recession to achieve this goal; he wants to blame the GOP for this. Or, if they cave to his demands for more power and more taxes against the Evil Rich, he’ll gloat over his Power over them.

  30. I don’t see the Conservative as ‘reactionary’ but as clear sighted and rational.
    Of course you do. There’s nothing rational about a movement that is so incoherent that you have to resort to ‘because it’s traditional/in the Bible’ to justify being in favor of limited government on one hand and in favor of prohibiting gay marriage/drugs on the other hand. There is nothing clear sighted about supporting Bush and Harper, two great champions of big government. Conservatism is hypocrisy.
    Thomas Sowell for President.
    10/10 best idea I’ve heard in weeks.

  31. @LAS – ha ha, you can’t answer a single one of Sowell’s questions can you? (Yeah but, isn’t on the list)

  32. LAS, in response to my post of:
    “I don’t see the Conservative as ‘reactionary’ but as clear sighted and rational. The Tea Party, to me, represents the conservative agenda: limited and non-intrusive government, low taxes, freedom for individual enterprise and thought, balanced budget.”
    You, LAS, replied:
    “Of course you do. There’s nothing rational about a movement that is so incoherent that you have to resort to ‘because it’s traditional/in the Bible’ to justify being in favor of limited government on one hand and in favor of prohibiting gay marriage/drugs on the other hand. There is nothing clear sighted about supporting Bush and Harper, two great champions of big government. Conservatism is hypocrisy.”
    LAS, could you show me where in my statement I supported limited government ‘because it’s traditional/in the Bible’? Could you provide this evidence to substantiate your comment?
    Could you also show me where I stated prohibiting gay marriage/drugs? Could you provide this evidence for me? After all, I’m sure you want to be accountable for what you write.
    I defined the conservative political ideology as basically articulated within the Tea Party policies. They say nothing about ‘tradition’ or ‘the bible’. Could you, LAS, substantiate your words?
    As for gay marriage, I agree with Harper; it’s not the business of the federal government. My view is that it should be decided by the people at the local or state or provincial level by referendum. It has nothing to do with the federal duties.
    You support gay marriage but you say nothing about where, legally, this support should be dealt with. Federal or provincial?
    As for drugs, we all know you support them. That’s your business. I don’t because I’m not interested in the societal results of them which the taxpayer has to bear – in road accidents, in violence, in inability to work and function in the society.
    I admired Bush’s approach to Islamic fascism and respected his attempt to rein in the Democratic Congress. As for Harper, in my view, he’s the best PM Canada has ever had.

  34. Hey ET I actually never talked about you. But don’t let that stop you from making it about you. Better yet, tack on an absurd love note to Bush and Harper.
    ^Classic ET^

  35. LAS, when you put in a quote from me as your header, and then, proceed to talk about its content, then, you are indeed talking about my comment. When you BEGIN your comment with the phrase ‘Of course you do’, that’s a clear indication that you are most certainly ‘talking about my comment’. There’s no way for you to get around this.
    Now, how about answering my questions?
    Are you, LAS, accountable for your comments or do you just stroll by this blog to flip your finger at us and zip away? That seems to be your normal pattern; you never support your opinions; you resort instantly to semantic slithering and insults; and you always, always, refuse to answer questions. Typical LAS?

  37. Really, LAS? So was I. I was very specific to refer to ‘Conservative’. And nowhere in my post did I refer to your descriptors of ‘tradition’ or ‘bible’ or ‘gay marriage and drugs’.
    So, if you begin your comment with a copy of my post, and use pronouns such as ‘you’ immediately after my comment, then forgive me for thinking that you were indeed referring to my comments and not just to the ‘general conservative’. After all, why did you bother to include my comment? Oh, and by the way, I reject your definition of conservative.
    Again, LAS, how about being accountable.

  38. ET…you are literaly arguing with an “annointed” one. There is no hope but time for LAS and if he’s visiting here, perhaps there may be time for him/her…lew rockwell and this site helped me overcome four years of U of R mid seventies socialism.

  39. Sowell is a virtuous man, and a very intelligent one, which is a combination that is practically extinct among public intellectuals. He sees through liberal arguments and no doubt his experience of leaving high school before graduation due to family problems, and working to achieve everything he has, led him to reject Marxism/Progressivism very early in life.

  40. What kind of parents would allow LAS this sort of daily access to their computer, and why did they ever let him get this out of control?
    It begs the serious question, where do all of our taxes for Child Protective Services really go these days???
    In effect LAS is propbaly is not all your fault, but society should really step at this point before you get to vote.

  41. yikes fat fingers above – meant to say:
    In effect LAS it’s probably not all your fault, but society should really step at this point before you get to vote.

  42. What I’ve seen here involves tossing a lot of labels around and considerable dichotimization. In real life people exhibit complex behaviors. Labelling them with an exclusive binary label is simply incorrect as this may only relate to one small aspect of their weltanschauung.
    In the “conservatism” category, I get characterized as such by other doctors based on my political views (most of whom have only a hazy idea about the concept of Libertarianism) but in the field of medicine, my views of many of my colleagues are that they are reactionary in their timidity to try treatments which I consider reasonable but they consider to be far too radical a departure from orthodoxy. Given that I’m still practicing medicine I’ve been right much more often than I’ve been wrong and have a “radical” label attached to me for this aspect of my behavior.
    Korzybski’s support for English prime (E’) was to eliminate the semantic distortion of uncritical assignment from the English language. In E’, the word ‘is’ has the same negative connotations as using a ‘goto’ statement does in a modern programming language.
    People are complex individuals that can be replaced by labels only in a system that seeks to divide people up into antagonistic groups. Statists utilize the divide and conquer technique a lot and Obozo has been rolling back a century or more of multiracialism in the US to produce a polarized and divided society which benefits him. When I have to use a binary division of people my classification system involves those people who just want to be left alone to do their own thing and the other group actively seeks to exert control over other people. Needless to say, members of the latter group and myself have not gotten along during my lifetime.
    Because I’m a doctor, further distinctions are possible and I classify doctors into those who know what they’re doing and those who I wouldn’t send a patient I disliked to. Within the group of doctors exhibiting the attribute of competence there are a wide variety of political views and these are kept out of the workplace as we all know where the others stand and that arguments over politics serve no purpose in a hospital setting. I work with a person with strong socialist views and he and I get along quite well as our interactions are primarily limited to medicine.
    By recognizing the complexity of people and the dangers of arbitrary labels one has a much better likelyhood of identifying the dangerous statists. If people belong to the class of individuals whose primary desire consists of being left alone, I don’t care what their political views are and conflict only arises if their activities directly affect me. In the case of individuals exhibiting tendencies to exert control over other individuals for their own purposes, they are the enemy and that’s where I will resort to labelling them as dangerous and needing to be dealt with at the appropriate time. Most politicians, regardless of political affiliation, fall into this category.

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