Sowell - Are Facts Obsolete?

[Terri]

By Thomas Sowell
July 15, 2008

In an election campaign in which not only young liberals, but also some people who are neither young nor liberals, seem absolutely mesmerized by the skilled rhetoric of Barack Obama, facts have receded even further into the background than usual.

As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a change for the better.

Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.

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[MISSL]

Well done Dr. Sowell, as usual

I do not understand. You see this. I see this. The pople on this forum and other conservative forums see this...and yet the majority of pople seem to be blind to this man's rhetoric. We are truly in trouble as a nation if this man wins the presidency. Truly in deep trouble.

And by the way Dr. Sowell, I think you should be required reading by everyone...in school and out. You are brilliant.

[Think About It]

Indeed facts are obsolete for politicians especially in the middle of a political campaign. In fact, truth in any form or format is rare for most politicians.

[Terri]

Coyote, I went by what you said and offered you resources. Your post sounded like a plea from someone requesting information. It didn't lead me to believe that you already had the information.

It's really good if we can discuss the particular column posted in this thread so I'm going to move those posts over to Rants where they can be read and responded to without taking this particular thread away from the topic of the article.

[FlaJim]

Facts are inconvenient things. Wish I could remember who said that.

There are countless times I've challenged Democrats and other leftists on their 'facts,' only to hear the subject changed or the old, "Everybody knows..." (When you hear that, you know you're winning the argument.)

Dems have been lying for at least 80 years that they're the party for the 'little people' when nothing could be further from the truth. They're the party that lives off of the discontent and disenchantment of the 'little people' and want all of us to realize that we belong there so they can justify high taxes and a society ordered to their preferences in order to grasp and maintain power. No cost is too high to achieve that end.

A knowledgeable electorate is our greatest ally and it's up to us to keep hammering at the leftists with facts and to keep educating our less enlightened neighbors.

[STEELMAN]

Perhaps a defining moment in showing Senator Obama's priorities was his declaring, in answer to a question from Charles Gibson, that he was for raising the capital gains tax rate. When Gibson reminded him of the well-documented fact that lower tax rates on capital gains had produced more actual revenue collected from that tax than the higher tax rates had, Obama was unmoved.

And this man wants to be president; unmoved by facts... but highly offended by cartoons that place him in the light of truth.

Dr. Sowell is a man of simple, down to earth, facts and common horse sense. He has an ingrained code of K.I.S.S. as a guide which seemingly escapes the so-called super intellectual types that think they impress the many with their superior oratory magnificence coupled with redundancy.

I enjoy his articles immensely.

[ddrinsp]

Dr. Sowell, as usual know his historical facts. Excellent article!

FACT: Barack Obama or John McCain will be President of the United States next year! We need to wake up before this election or we're going to have every branch of government controlled by the far left with devastating consequences for ourselves, our families and for our country.

[schillerbjr]

Dr. Sowell, right on as "USUAL"!

[Nicholas]

Dr. Sowell hits the nail on the head, as usual!

One part of what liberals don't get is called the zero-sum game - the idea that if I earn a dollar more, then somebody else earns a dollar less. If we all worked for the same employer, and that employer gets a fixed amount of money per year (or per month, whatever), then that would be true. A government agency is an example of such a situation.

But in the economy at large, if I earn a dollar more, that's a dollar more I have available to spend - on food, clothing, tickets to a movie, etc. Someone else gets a dollar more in their pay. I save only a small percentage of my pay, as most Americans do. Even my savings get spent, eventually: as a down payment on a house or a car (someone in the construction industry or the auto industry gets that extra dollar that I earned), my kids' college education (more money for some professors), my daughter's wedding (hello, dressmakers, florists, et al), and the list goes on.

This is the part of Econ 101 that (most, anyway) liberals don't get. They don't understand that raising tax rates just siphons more and more money from the flow of cash from my employer to me to all the places where I shop, and if tax rates are too high - yes, Barack, there is such a thing - it strangles the economy.