Some comments and details on Thomas Sowell and other commentators

From our Roving Correspondent C, Brooks Nielsen ...

I welcome the viewpoints of others regarding the benefits of the Obama presidency. The more I study current events, the more I am convinced that the President is misguided as to the true nature of the American promise. I was confused, at first by his speech to school students September 8 calling for personal responsibility when I hear him often claim adults cannot take care of themselves. Unfortunately, I am reminded of his interest in forming a youth brigade reminiscent of Hitler and Orwell's '1984.'
I got a kick out of my fifteen-year-old granddaughter agreeing that teenagers would like to be granted more relevance than their elders, and am comforted by her opinion that the idea just won't fly.

This morning, after hearing the President again calling for his version of Health Care reform, I wish I could share with him the perspective of Thomas Sowell. I consider Sowell's September 8 article, "Listening to a Liar" on tsowell.com as a highly useful check point. Although the title of this article sounds harsh, I believe it targets the problems caused by the President's mixed messages. For further information as to Sowell's compelling viewpoint, I am including biographical information below and two of his pre-election "Random Thoughts" that sum up the cure for what ails politics:

"Most of the problems of this country are not nearly as bad as the 'solutions' -- especially the solutions that politicians come up with during election year" and "The way to get people's votes is to say that all their problems are caused by other people, and that you will stop those other people from giving them trouble. But if you really want to help, then you can tell them the truth and risk losing their votes."

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Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina. His father died before he was born. In his autobiography, 'A Personal Odyssey,' he recalled that his encounters with whites were so limited he didn't believe that "yellow" was a hair color. He moved to Harlem, New York City with his mother's sister (who, at the time, he believed was his mother). Sowell attended Stuyvesant High School, but dropped out at age 17 because of financial difficulties and a deteriorating home environment.[2] To support himself he worked at various jobs, including in a machine shop and as a delivery man for Western Union. He applied to enter the Civil Service and was eventually accepted, which prompted a move to Washington DC. He was drafted in 1951, during the Korean War, and was assigned to the US Marine Corps. Due to prior experience in photography, he worked in a photography unit.

After discharge, Sowell passed the GED examination and enrolled at Howard University. He transferred to Harvard University, where in 1958 he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. He received a Master of Arts in Economics from Columbia University in 1959, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics from the University of Chicago. Sowell initially chose Columbia University because he wanted to study under George Stigler. After arriving at Columbia and learning that Stigler had moved to Chicago, he followed him there.[3]

Sowell has taught Economics at Howard University, Cornell University, Brandeis University, and UCLA. Since 1980 he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds a fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman.[4]

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I also highly recommend Walter E. Williams' compelling bio and perspective regarding what I believe we all have hoped for in the Obama presidency.

And for what I see as the truth that sets all men free, from a 19th century abolitionist activist and escaped slave:

"Everybody has asked the question. . ."What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us!
Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!" --Frederick Douglass (Found through PBS.org)

"Now Wait Just One Minute . . ." An answer to Liberal Hypocrites from Victor Davis Hanson

I'm sick of watching the amazing parade of utter hypocrisy emitted by Congressional Liberals, "Mainstream Media" dweebs, and all the Officials who are demanding that 'dissidents' be "interviewed" since we don't simply drink their Kool-Aid, so here's a great opinion piece from Victor Davis Hansen:

Now Wait Just One Minute . . . 

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September 16, 2009
Now Wait Just One Minute . . .
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner

Maureen Dowd wrote another unfortunate, poorly argued, and thinly researched column yesterday. She alleges that racism is behind the growing suspicion of the Obama administration and its initiatives. But almost everything we've seen so far has a parallel with liberal attacks on George W. Bush. By 2005, Democrats were booing him openly during his State of the Union address. Rep. Pete Stark called him a liar on the House floor. In fact, the response so far to Obama is mild in comparison to what Bush endured. That does not excuse the boorishness of Joe Wilson, but his tirade is symbolic of our loss of decorum since 2002/2003.

As we all remember, novels were published outlining dreams of killing Bush; a film on that theme won an award. Al Gore, John Glenn (of all people!), and Robert Byrd compared Bush to a brownshirt or Nazi, and they were echoed in the popular culture by the likes of Linda Rondstadt and Garrison Keiler ("brownshirts in pinstripes"). There was no liberal outcry in response.

The Guardian published a sick column by one Charles Brooker, who asked out loud, "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. — where are you now that we need you?" Howard Dean, head of the Democratic party, raged, "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for." I think it was The New Republic that published Jonathan Chait's infamous "Why I Hate George W. Bush" article — imagine the outcry should anyone now do the same reprehensible thing with Obama substituted for Bush (e.g., "Why I Hate Barack H. Obama"). A play ran in New York called "I'm Gonna Kill the President."

Michael Moore was not censured by Democratic grandees for his horrendous comments (such as describing the insurgents in Iraq as modern-day Minutemen), but was instead rewarded with invitations from top Democrats, presumably because he was deemed useful. So far, unhinged Republican senators have not blasted Obama and suggested that our troops are akin to Nazis, terrorists, Khmer Rouge killers, and Baathists (in the manner of Senator Durbin or the late Senator Kennedy).

When an Iraqi threw shoes at President Bush, there was plenty of undisguised delight among liberal columnists and bloggers. I can imagine the response had a Bush-appointed green-jobs czar said that 9/11 was a government inside job, that Democrats were "a—holes," that Obama was like a crackhead, and that black people were more prone to shoot people and pollute. He would be fired on the spot, and his insanities cited as proof of larger social pathologies.

Joe Wilson was boorish and absolutely wrong to have yelled out during a presidential speech. And a few of the signs at Saturday's march in Washington were, like their counterparts on the left during their marches, way over the top. But so far, we have seen in the opposition to Obama none of the hatred and sickness that characterized a wide swath of opinion on the left during the Bush years — hatred and sickness that were mainstreamed by the likes of Alfred Knopf, the Guardian, and the Democratic party.

So far, the New York Times has not offered a discount to run a politicized ad like "General Betray Us" attacking Obama. I don't remember Ms. Dowd herself complaining about the tone of any the above, but I do recall her own mean-spirited offerings, like her recent silly admission that "In the past week, I’ve twice been close enough to Dick Cheney to kick him in the shins. . . . I didn't. It's probably a federal crime of some sort. But a girl can fantasize." Write about Obama in the manner Dowd did about Cheney, and one would of course be called a racist. This is all puerile and shameless.

The present poisoned atmosphere began in the 1980s and 1990s with virulent partisan attacks on Reagan and Clinton. But it was between 2004 and 2008 that the Left introduced a particularly sick sort of hatred to the political give-and-take, reminiscent of the lunatic right during the mid-1950s.

So far the opposition to Obama has not followed the Bush-hating exemplar, and let us pray that it does not. But there is a growing public perception that a Left that used every means to achieve its ends is suddenly terrified that others as crass might follow its own unfortunate lead. One of the most surreal developments of the last nine months has been to see Times columnists who were particularly unfair and vicious in their 24/7 attacks on the prior administration now call for more civil discourse and impugn the motives of Obama critics, apparently in bewilderment that anyone would question the president's competence or sincerity. This is all quite amazing, really.

©2009 Victor Davis Hanson