Let’s face it: Most of us are not half as smart as we may sometimes think we are — and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart.
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One of the biggest obstacles to economic recovery is that politicians and the media are both focused on how government can make the economy recover, rather than on how it can let the economy recover. One of the biggest deterrents to investments — and the jobs they could create — is uncertainty over what new bright ideas will come out of Washington to change the rules in midstream.
Is there some reason that football helmets have to be hard? Wouldn’t a thick rubber helmet provide protection without being itself an injury-producing weapon?
The History Channel has some very good programs when it sticks to history. But it keeps going off on tangents with all kinds of contemporary activities and even weird speculations that are not history.
One of the telling signs carried in a Tea Party demonstration said: “Spread my work ethic, not my wealth.” It may be better to teach people how to fish, rather than to give them fish, but too many politicians give them fish, in order to get their votes.
Among the things that have come out of the WikiLeaks documents is that the king of Saudi Arabia has a more realistic understanding of the enormous dangers of an Iranian nuclear bomb than the president of the United States does.
Before this National Football League season began, I wished that my favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys, would fire Wade Phillips as head coach and replace him with Mike Singletary of the San Francisco 49ers. Fortunately, only one of my two wishes came true.
An amazing example of invincible ignorance is the widespread assumption that lower tax rates automatically mean lower tax revenues. Tax-rate cuts have often been followed by higher tax revenues, not only in the United States, but also in India, Iceland, and 19th-century German principalities, among other places.
A chilling account of how the Justice Department operates in the Obama administration appeared in the November issue of The American Spectator, under the title “Justice, Denied.” It should open the eyes of all but the true believers in the Obama cult.
Many of those in the so-called “helping professions” are helping people to be irresponsible and dependent on others.
University students rioting against tuition increases on both sides of the Atlantic are painful signs of the degeneracy of our times. The idea that taxpayers owe it to you to pay for what you want suggests that much of today’s education fails to instill reality and instead panders to a self-centered sense of entitlement to what other people have earned.
The Bible, the Torah, and the Koran don’t mention Christmas trees. Yet some secular zealots try to ban Christmas trees on government property, based on the doctrine of “separation of church and state” — a doctrine found nowhere in the Constitution.
More disturbing than any of the issues of our time are the many people who debate those issues as contests in talking points, rather than as attempts to get at the truth. Too many people debate as if the point is to show who is smarter, rather than which conclusion is correct.
When the attempt to get wholesale amnesty for illegal immigrants through Congress failed, that just led to new legislation seeking to get retail amnesty, for selected sets of illegals, under the so-called “DREAM Act.” In other words, we are now supposed to buy disaster on the installment plan.
Many parents of college-bound students wonder whether there are still any places where most of the professors are teaching instead of indoctrinating. Actually, there are more than 50 colleges with a “green light” rating on that score in the huge college guide, Choosing the Right College.
When arguing against the tax compromise, Sen. Bernie Sanders castigated “the rich,” asking, “When is enough enough?” He also said that “reckless uncontrollable greed is like a disease.” Such statements are far more applicable to government big spenders and big taxers, who confiscate not only the earnings of today’s citizens, but the earnings of generations yet unborn, who will be left a record-breaking national debt.
Sowell asks, "Is there some reason that football helmets have to be hard? Wouldn’t a thick rubber helmet work as well, without being itself an injury-producing weapon?"
I ask: Is there some reason why linebackers have to be so big? Wouldn't a short, slender linebacker provide tackling, without the risk of injuring opposing players?
For that matter, who cares if the players are hurt. There is so much competition by athletes to get into these slots that a heightened risk of injury would simply cull the herd. They can easily be replaced. And, if numerous replacements should diminish interest in the sport, then the capital invested in the NFL (and in the college athetics that supply it) could be re-invested in industrial tooling to compete against China.
See, I've learned my conservative economics very well!
I debate with several friends in the L.A. area on similar matters of fiscal responsibility; and their intellectualism dictates all business is greedy and only checked by the government. (Yes, they are clueless) Your articles are always inspiring.
Great insights, especially on Christmas trees and castigating the rich. However, even the great Thomas Sowell can be woefully wrong on America's most important topic. A Dallas fan? Sad, very sad.
As usual Thomas Sowell is a delight to read, but what is that nonsense about the NFL from "Never Outraged" all about? Team rosters are limited to 53 players, which is why you don't see 10 quarterbacks standing around and why, for example, injuries are a big deal. There are few men who can play at the pro level. The fact that so many are so large means that a coach who fields a skinny team would not only lose a lot of games (and his quarterbacks) but never be hired again in the NFL. This isn't baseball and Bill Veeck ain't coaching!
With all due respect, the Dallas Cowboys are your favorite team? “America's Team,” the one with the pretty quarterback? The “Dallas” Cowboys, who actually play in Arlington, and who just built a wretched excess of a Roman spectacle stadium?
Gah. Overpaid, over-hyped losers, I say. For grit and gumption, and, by the way, winning records, I'll take the Baltimore Ravens or Pittsburgh Steelers any day of the week. Both are working-man's teams, who play ball in actual cities. It's a shame both teams are in the same division.
But, it being Christmas time, you are forgiven of your football fandom sins. Fine column, and merry Christmas, sir.
"Let’s face it: Most of us are not half as smart as we may sometimes think we are — and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart."
Thomas, I am always fascinated with the conservative disdain for intellectuals. Here is the dictionary definition of an intellectual:
"intelligent person, somebody with a highly developed ability to reason and understand, especially if also well educated and interested in the arts or sciences or enjoying activities involving serious mental effort.
I understand through the content of your piece that you do not qualify as an intelligent person- an intellectual. But as the standard variety conservative who has a disdain for intelligence, can't you at least pretend that you are not anti-intelligence. It is so revealing.
WFB JR said it best..."One ruminates on the analysis, the idealism, the inventiveness, the disillusion, the demoralization expressed here; and the tought and researsch of Thomas Sowell strikes one as overwhelmingly cogent".
If there ever was a national treasure it is Prof Sowell...
Sowell gets to the heart of today's ideological arguments when he says that too often people are more interested in winning a point then finding the truth. Sometimes it seems as if people abrogate common sense when it doesn't fit the ideological position they have bought into. For example, everyone knows that you get paid for delivering value, in either a product or a service; that goes for employees and entrepreneurs. So why do we not demand that the government demonstrate what value it adds - to everything it does, including health care and education. We all should know that every dollar the government spends comes out of our pockets, and we should demand to "see the beef."
It is with a heavy heart that I write to you, Mr. Sowell, today. I have found my faith in your intellect shaken and am much disturbed by your obviously faulty judgment. The Dallas Cowboys?!!! Say it isn't so! As a Bay Area inhabitant, your betrayal is unconscionable. Your pedastal has cracked. However, in the spirit of Christmas giving, you and the Cowboys can have Singletary - relieve us of his incompetence.
I think that he was trying to illustrate the fact that people who consider themselves to be intellectuals tend to overestimate their intelligence more than average people do. He didn't imply anything that resembled anti-intelligence.
Mr. Sowell this was a very entertaining article thank you for sharing.
A hard rubber-like helmet would only increase the risk of injury.
Imagine a helmet made of the material used in automobile tires. As the two players bounced head-to-head (or head to uniform) the rubber would "grab" and cause the players to "pivot" about the contact point. We are talking 250lb. to 350(+)lb. guys pivoting about their necks! Double-plus-ungood.
The hard plastic allows the contact point to slide and/or the helmeted head to rebound from impact, not fun but less dangerous to the neck/spine.
Unfortunately, this also makes a hard-helmeted head a blunt weapon. As military men have realised since the helmet was first invented.
A response to the author of "Let's face it..." Sowell is speaking with disdain of those with pretensions of intellectualism who so densely populate the ranks of liberals and progressives. He refers to the preening, posturing, condescending and ultimately intellectually provincial toilers and cranks who have overtaken academia. He uses the term in the same sense as George Orwell observed "There are some things so stupid that only an intellectual would believe them." It is only a spasm of willful obtuseness that insists Sowell is anti-intellectual and such a charge puts him in the same company as Orwell who himself suffered such slings and arrows from dismissive leftists of his day.
Contempt lies barely beneath the surface of conservative editorial comment.
As was said in the epic film Pink Flamingos: "I guess there's just two kinds of people, Miss Sandstone: MY kind of people, and [vulgar word for rear orifices]"
