I don’t care who you are, that’s some funny stuff.
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St. Thomas, huh? Nice.
For a counter-argument to TS’s primary theses, see: What’s wrong with Thomas Sowell?. There is something of an obsession… | by Dawson Richard Vosburg | Medium
“Thomas Sowell…has made his career less on scholarly arguments accountable to the rigorous critique of his peers and more on quotable quips, book-length tirades, and debate clap lines for the adulation of his libertarian fans and conservative think tank colleagues. Even though they are hollow when you knock on them, Sowell presents his arguments with confidence and frames the story as being one of an incompetent, mean-spirited economic left against a sensible, evidence-based economic right. When that is a story you already believe, Sowell’s arguments appear compelling, and his demeanor is confident and charismatic. But ultimately, Sowell is better at rhetorical flourish than thoughtful empirical analysis or philosophical consistency. I worry that too many Christians assume with Sowell that those on the left are simply ignorant and naive or resentful, even while failing to recognize the devastating problems with every part of Sowell’s program.”
Pete
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Ha ha, I will disagree here. I made a new friend for what, 5 mins? Sowell is a smart guy. I put him up there with Chomsky and Hitchens. But all these public intellectuals have their blind spots. (Funny that Sowell dumps on “public intellectuals” often naming Chomsky specifically, but has been one himself for 50 years…?!)
They are fonts, mines, mountains, of facts and knowledge but alas, are like a child who still insists there’s a monster in the closet when it comes to certain issues on which they are so blind they will not see. (I like long sentences like Chomsky)
With Chomsky, for all his knowledge and brain power, cannot ever come to a conclusion on something that isn’t “Hate America First” or doesn’t involve “Hating Whitey.” How can someone so smart be so… stupid?
With Sowell it’s the childish obsession with “market economics” and “liberals” simply spouted like a giddy high school cheerleader on the sidelines, or worse, an actor making a movie in a foreign language he must read off of cards in a transliteration of his own language. Just make the right noise. It’ll be OK. He’s a grown man, and an old man but sounds like some dilettante college Republican from a top 1% family.
Chomsky is often right but fails to take into consideration “the rest of the story” even though he KNOWS IT but it does not serve his Left Oriented pettifogging lectures.
Sowell, supposedly an economist by training, is a much, MUCH better historian and observer of human behavior than he is an economist. (Assuming he believes what he says about economics.)
Ya see? I subscribe to old the saying: You never want to really get to know your heroes. In the end, despite their achievements and all the good they might have been to you, the are still mostly just full "ess "
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I don’t think you’ve actually read any of Sowell’s work and I doubt you know Vosburg. He’s a sociology PHD candidate at Ohio State focusing on Religion and Socialism.
Sowell has a degree in Economics from Harvard and a Masters from Columbia University. He has been the Senior Fellow at Stanford University since 1980. He turned down the position of US Secretary of Education and also as head of the Federal Trade Commission. What I am saying is you could not have cited someone less qualified to critique Sowell’s work.
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I know, right? How could anyone who is associated with such a lesser school as Ohio State know anything or be able to analyze someone else’s work product, especially someone who is so well-credentialed as Sowell? Sowell is not to be questioned.
It seems, though, that you may not have read Vosburg’s argument…
Pete
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OSU is a great University but most humanities departments have become incestuous self credentialing places of indoctrination that lack the rigorous peer review of the hard sciences. Can you cite for me exactly what Vosburg says is incorrect about Sowell’s findings on the legacy of slavery and his evidence to the contrary? Do you understand the difference between opinion and evidenced based reasoning? I welcome your critique but your going to have cite something more than a brief reference to “the well established literature on the inherited legacy of racial inequality”.
Sowell was originally a Marxist as a young academic that came to his conclusions not out of ideology but because what he tried to prove out of belief turned out to be false.
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I was not the one who cited Sowell in a one-sentence quote. I was simply citing a counter-argument to that sentence made by a controversial and highly politically polarizing figure.
Pete
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That sounds like out and out chest pumping. Do you deserve that right? Not at all.
The fact is African Americans are locked up endlessly and then used as ultra cheap labor. The incarceration rate destroys the economics of the bottom 40% of African American households to keep that as cheap labor as well.
The issue is proper care for all. Meaning if a small lazy businessman can not afford labor he must get a job instead of hiring people on the cheap. He is in the way of our economy entirely!
Pride goeth before a fall. Just fall if you can not afford labor. Get out of our way.
What specifically have we as a nation sacrificed?
What specifically have you in any way sacrificed?
If it was our ideal how is any of it a sacrifice? How is equality a sacrifice?
Crazy concepts.
The sacrifice was about fighting England. It was not about keeping slaves. It was not about using cheap labor. It was not about getting an advantage that was being legitimized in some crazy way.
I guess you never heard of the Civil War. 620,000 men sacrificed their lives for that purpose and risked the fate of an entire nation. What have I sacrificed, nothing by comparison. Our job is to remind others of that sacrifice and remain grateful for the price they paid.
How is equality a sacrifice? I guess that’s why there was only a single Republic in the world by 1776 and still only 5 other democracies 50 years later.
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I never served. I come from a very rich family. Dad hired a doctor who signed a letter that I had bone spurs. I did not have to go to Vietnam.
I think that truly was for fools as I have said for decades.
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Deserve has nothing to do with it. Two Parent African American households with the same education levels as their caucasian counterparts have almost identical average wealth and income levels. In fact, there are 9 ethnic groups that rank higher than both of those groups in the US in average income and wealth.
Incarceration is no doubt clearly connected to poverty. Unfortunately, as with white americans, the risk of that is much higher in single parent households. The people I know that run small businesses come from a wide range of backgrounds. Regardless of gender and skin color, what they share in common is an ability to take on risk and an enormous amount of drive and ambition. The best of them actual act as mentors to those around them, I know I benefited from one of them.
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From Merriam-Webster — REPUBLIC
a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit
From Dictionary.com
noun a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.
From Wikipedia
A republic (from Latin res publica ‘public affair’) is a state in which political power rests with the public and their representatives, in contrast with a monarchy. [1] [2] Representation in a republic may or may not be freely elected by the general citizenry.
As you can see these definitions are in low-level conflict. According to one the right Monarchy can be a Republic and a Republic may or may not actually represent The Public. And a dictatorship can pass for a republic. I see no magic here.
More huzzahs and “worship words.” Like The Bible and The Constitution they seem to mean whatever the speaker wants them to mean.
PS: Republics:
Poland 1 July 1569 |Establishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a result of the Union of Lublin.
Lithuania 1 July 1569 |Establishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a result of the Union of Lublin.
Netherlands – 26 July 1581-- subsequently re-installed a monarchy but let’s face it, they’re a Republic
Switzerland 24 October 1648
And Wikipedia left out what I was always told was "The world’s oldest republic: San Marino. Oldest Constitution: 1600
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Have a like for a very well reasoned response.
My prior post was echoing the actual 45.
I was born in 1963 and was too young for Vietnam.
Small businesspeople are all sorts of things from good to completely rotten. Depends more on the industry than the person. The economics of an industry demand certain things within the competition. For the majority of small business workers on main street the business people are often rotten.
Main street is not a place during supply side econ to make a living as a small businessperson because GDP growth is next to stagnant.
The smaller machine shops in CT have always been much better employers.
Small financials are decent employers. There is a list of small business people who are decent but the majority of workers are with terrible main street companies.
The headlines will this help or hurt main street…while voting for a tax cut for the super wealthy…talk about selling people a ticket to cut their own throats.
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It’s a nice try and you left out the Republic of Rome if you want to go back even further. The modern Republic as it is applied to the United States where power rested at both the local level and through representatives at the Federal was the first of its kind. Switzerland was probably the closest in its form but that version didn’t occur until I believe until around 1790.
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The sharing of power comes from the Magna Carta and then later philosophers like Locke. The colonies each having their own governance gave us an edge up.
The invention of the Republic was prior to 1776 in that the fertile ground had been planted.
It would be Hamilton who understood want was truly needed in the larger sense of history.
The US gets the credit. That is hardly a sacrifice. That is a profit. That is power.
Our system is only half baked. The countries that can match us in having half baked systems as well are luckier than the rest of the nations.
By the way, thank you for the like, much appreciated.
No sacrifice at all, a few guys got together and just signed a letter to King George. I think we lost roughly 70,000 patriots, most of them while incarcerated by the British. That doesn’t count the collateral damage the British levied on non military supporters. Of course, it all got retested in 1812. Other than that, it was smooth sailing up until the Civil War where it was retested again.
There is no doubt that the idea of the Republic and the sovereignty of the individual pre-dates our founding fathers. The earliest ideas may even precede Locke. Our geographical isolation from England and abundant resources, access to the sea, all created a fertile opportunity. But if it really was that easy, why did take the rest of the world so long to catch up and why have so many still not done so?
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- an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure.
The word sacrifice is only religious. It can be misused.
The country fought a war. It was not a war of religion. The founding fathers were far from wanting a religious state.
The word for the men who gave their lives? Patriots. Fathers. Sons. Brothers.
The issue is not sacrifice. You are not feeling any sense of loss. Odd thing about being human.
The issues were how to win a war with fewer losses on our side.
Between 25,000 and 70,000 American Patriots died during active military service. [1] Of these, approximately 6,800 were killed in battle, while at least 17,000 died from disease. The majority of the latter died while prisoners of war of the British, mostly in the prison ships in New York Harbor.
We did not do a great job of fighting that war.
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Son-in-law is an er doc. By the time he finished college, medical school and internship he was 30 years old. His reward for 7 additional years’ worth of study after college was a 32 pct marginal tax bracket and $200,000 in student loan payments and a delayed career. He loves what he does and makes a good living but I think he earned it.
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Doctors have worked for far less.
It is what the market will bear. Nothing more nothing less.
Ask anyone who suddenly has a medical bill out of pocket their thoughts and in no way shape or form did he earn it. He is ripping them off. Just a common opinion from people who work extremely hard.
Everyone claims to have earned it. The bureaucracy made them. The individual is far more powerful through the bureaucracies. Basic political theory.
My BIL an endocrinologist has to sit in a meeting once a month and say we are listening to you as workers. He knows they are not. He hates it. Those hospital workers would make far less without the bureaucracy but nothing is ever enough.
Just means we are all alive for now.