Thomas Sowell

Is This Still America? Justice for….George Zimmerman

The political perversion of the criminal justice system began early and at the top, with the President of the United States.

Who Is Racist?

The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders.

Random thoughts on the passing scene: Edmund Burke said, “There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men.” Evil men do not always snarl. Some smile charmingly. Those are the most dangerous. If you...

The Mindset of the Left: Part IV

At the heart of the left’s vision of the world is the implicit assumption that high-minded third parties like themselves can make better decisions for other people than those people can make for themselves. That arbitrary and unsubstantiated assumption underlies...

The Mindset of the Left: Part III

The fundamental problem of the political left seems to be that the real world does not fit their preconceptions. Therefore they see the real world as what is wrong, and what needs to be changed, since apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong. A never-ending...

The Mindset of the Left: Part II

The political left has long claimed the role of protector of “the poor.” It is one of their central moral claims to political power. But how valid is this claim? Leaders of the left in many countries have promoted policies that enable the poor to be more...

The Mindset of the Left

When teenage thugs are called “troubled youth” by people on the political left, that tells us more about the mindset of the left than about these young hoodlums. Seldom is there a speck of evidence that the thugs are troubled, and often there is ample...

NSA, Obama and The Loss of Trust

Amid all the heated cross-currents of debate about the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program, there is a growing distrust of the Obama administration that makes weighing the costs and benefits of the NSA program itself hard to assess. The...

Abstract Immigrants

Anything we try to do as regards immigration laws has to be done in the context of a huge welfare state that is already a major, inescapable fact of life.

Economics vs. ‘Need’

One of the most common arguments for allowing more immigration is that there is a “need” for foreign workers to do “jobs that Americans won’t do,” especially in agriculture. One of my most vivid memories of the late Armen Alchian, an...

Sex and the Military

The headline on the front page of the New York Times said it all: “Women in the Senate Confront the Military on Sex Assaults.” In a triumphalist article showcasing the growing numbers of women on the Senate Armed Services Committee, “one of the...

Historic Rescuers

It is not really news that Victor Davis Hanson has written another outstanding and eye-opening book. He has done that before and repeatedly, on a variety of subjects. The subject of his latest book, “The Savior Generals” is given in the subtitle:...

The Bullying Pulpit

The federal government already has ample powers to punish people who have broken the tax laws. It does not need additional powers to bully people who haven’t.

Wimps Versus Barbarians

When the nationwide campus disruptions and violence of the 1960s gave way to quieter times in the 1970s, many academics congratulated themselves on having restored peace. But it was the peace of surrender.

Lies About Libya: Obama, Clinton and Benghazi

Despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s loudly proclaimed question “What difference, at this point, does it make?” the difference is between an honest mistake and a calculated lie to deceive the American people, in order to win an election.

Looking Back — and Forward

Whatever Barack Obama’s words, his deeds have been directed less toward stopping Iran from going nuclear than they have been toward stopping Israel from stopping Iran from going nuclear.

Bouncing Ball Politics

Housing has been just one area where the bouncing ball approach to political decision-making has led the country into one disaster after another.

Words That Replace Thought

If there is ever a contest for words that substitute for thought, “diversity” should be recognized as the undisputed world champion. You don’t need a speck of evidence, or a single step of logic, when you rhapsodize about the supposed benefits of...

Politics: The Art of the Impossible

Someone called politics “the art of the possible.” But, in the era of the modern welfare state, politics is largely the art of the impossible. Those people morbid enough to keep track of politicians’ promises may remember how Barack Obama said that...

Is Thinking Obsolete?

Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination.

Genes and Racism

During decades of watching both collegiate and professional football, I have seen hundreds of touchdowns scored by black players — but not one extra point kicked by a black player. Is this because blacks are genetically incapable of kicking a football or because...

Immigration Gambles: Part II

Whose interests are immigration laws supposed to serve — and whose interests do current immigration reform proposals actually serve? In order to have any immigration policy serve any purpose, the border must first be secured. Otherwise American immigration...

Immigration Gambles

Britain’s late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said it all when she wrote that the world has “never ceased to be dangerous,” but the West has “ceased to be vigilant.” Nothing better illustrates her point than the fact that the West has...

Guns Save Lives

We almost never hear about these hundreds of thousands of defensive uses of guns from the media, which will report the killing of a dozen people endlessly around the clock.