It oftentimes is a good practice to find refuge from the incessant storm of government rhetoric passed off as sound public policy in the comfort of reason born out of critical thinking.
Indeed, reason and critical thinking in the formation of public policies are the rarest of commodities these days. But, indeed, they do exist. Today, we find both in the timeless observations of Thomas Sowell, the great economist, author and fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution:
“One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce and canonized those who complain.”
“The fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.”
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?”
“There are only two ways of telling the complete truth–anonymously and posthumously.”
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
“Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.”
“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
“Mystical references to ‘society’ and its programs to ‘help’ may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.”
“Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.”
“If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.”
“We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did.”
“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”
“Government ‘planning’ is not an alternative to chaos. It is a pre-emption of other people’s plans.”
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.”
The wise and timeless words of Thomas Sowell.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
